Remark this: you do not require any one to produce this knowledge, but simply to find it in himself. Every mediated certainty presupposes an original certainty. In the consciousness of every one, who is convinced of any thing at all, that certainty exists also; and every one can arise to that certainty from any conditioned and mediated knowledge.
I may here allude to another misunderstanding of my system. It is charged that, in my system, faith in God exists only for the moral, not for the immoral man. This is very correct when it means that faith is true only for man, in so far as he is moral; but not when it is interpreted that faith exists only for those men who are moral.
For where, then, is the personified, absolute immorality? It is an impossibility. Man can only be, and be self-conscious, in so far as he stands on the field of reason. Without any morality man is but an animal, but a product of organization, even in his theoretical knowledge.
This, then, is our result: Absolute certainty and conviction (not mere meaning, opinioning, and wishing) of the possibility—not to determine one’s self, that is, one’s will by the conception of duty, for this we recognize as possible by doing it, but—to promote the object of reason by thus determining our will through the conviction of duty, even, is the immediate of religion, and is grounded in the soul of man in the manner we have shown.
Here I must insert a remark concerning the use of language which I can no longer postpone without making myself ambiguous, and exposing myself again to old objections.
The word being signifies always immediately an object of thinking, a thought. Now, either to this word is also applied the predicate of an existence, a permanent and lasting, in sensuous perception outside of thinking, and in that case it signifies real being, and when applied to an object means, that object is—or to that word is applied no other predicate of being, but its thinking—and, in that case, the significance of such being is purely logical; and the word is only signifies the logical copula in which the manifold of predicates is fixed by thinking in a unity of the logical subject. In that case, you can not say of an object “it is,” but it is to be thought as this or that. There are further distinctions to be made here, of which I shall speak afterward.
There are other words related to the expression “being,” which have also these two significations: The word “principle,” for instance, which I have used, signifies, in a system of real being, a first, from which I can calculate a second and third, even without sensuous perception and with categorical certainty, thereby anticipating experience. But in this sense of the word the intelligible principle, freedom, is never principle of a real cognition, is never ground of an explanation and anticipation, that is, you can not foresee what will become actual through freedom. We only know through perception what is actual; and for the very reason that we do not recognize the product of freedom as a link of a comprehensible chain of causes and effects—it being an absolute first, and partially cognizable only in perception—do we say, freedom is a principle. Not principle in the actual sense, as ground of an immediate and necessary factical determinedness, but in the logical sense, as principle of possibilities.
It is the same with the word law. In the sensuous world law signifies that determination of power from which, as principle, the consequences can be deduced in the manner just stated. But when applied to the finite beings—who are free in the empirical sense of the word, that is, who are thought as simply determinable, and not determined—the word law means a shall, a categorical imperative, that is, a determinedness of freedom through freedom, and, therefore, no mechanical, no immediate determinedness. But when applied to the infinite, or to reason, κατ' έξοχήν—to which the empirical freedom just now mentioned can not be ascribed, as itself the result of finity—the word law signifies simply the necessity to always expect from that reason a determined content, determined (not materialiter, for in so far it is absolutely unknown to us, and, a priori, not to be deduced, but) formaliter, or determined through its object, the ultimate object of reason—to expect from it always an infinite, inexhaustible content of freedom for all rational individuals; Or, in other words, the necessity to expect from infinite reason that it should ever manifest itself in the conscience of all individuals, and thus render them free, moral beings, or at least furnish them the content of that freedom.—. although no existing determinedness can be shown up from which it might mechanically result, since we are here not in the sphere of the objective, but at the absolute ideal source of spirit. The word law has, therefore, here also no actual significance from which external and necessary results might be derived, but only logical significance, as gathering together that infinite content of freedom of the individuals into one conception.
It is the same with the word world. In its actual significance it means a finished whole of existing objects, in a reciprocal determination of their being, each of which being what it is, because all others are what they are, and vice versa; a whole, wherein, with a perfect knowledge of the laws of the world, we could determine the nature of each particular from that of all others. When applied to rational beings, that word signifies also, it is true, a totality, an influence of all upon each one, and of each one upon all; but not an influence which can be determined in advance, as it can be in nature, because in the world of rational beings this influence has its ground in being. Hence, the word world has here also only a logical, not an actual, significance.
The expression, order of a supersensuous world, has also been used; nay, I have often used it myself. But this expression is misapprehended, when it is understood as if the supersensuous world were before it had order, and as if order were thus but an accidence of that world. On the contrary, that world only becomes a world by being ordered.
Hence, whenever the purely intelligible is spoken of, all these and similar conceptions, that is, all conceptions which are derived from being and only determine it further, are used only in their logical, not in their actual significance.
I state this to put an end to a reproof frequently made, that I make use of the same words which I condemn in others; but I must use them to make myself understood, and I must take them from language in their accepted significance. But I use them in another sense than my opponent uses them, as ought to be evident from the deduction of the conceptions which they designate.
In stating our final result, we have stated the manner in which only the philosopher views religion; 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 determines his will by that command of duty, (conscience,) 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 conviction 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 will occur and must occur simply because it is involved 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 religious. Hence the man who, in all the conditions of his life, acts and thinks in so acting, “I thereby promote that which shall be, that is, the absolute object of reason,” is a perfectly virtuous and religious man, even though he might stop at that simple thought and never combine the manifold of what shall 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 conceptions. 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 conceptions.
The basis of religious faith was the conviction of an order or a law, by virtue of which from obedience to the command of duty must certainly result the absolute object of reason, and hence the actual attainment and realization of which each individual in his moral acts can but strive to attain.
Let us analyze what is contained in this conviction: Firstly, that which exclusively and absolutely depends upon my own will, namely, to determine it by the voice of duty. Secondly, the religious faith that in thus determining my will something is achieved which lies beyond the province of my individual moral will.
The second is connected with the first by religious 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 confidently realized in religion. It is therefore an unjust 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 infinite 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 determining of the will through the voice of conscience (not through argumentation as regarding the possible result of my will) can never deceive is known through faith, is known immediately, not mediately, through argumentation. Here, therefore, is the first connecting link between pure morality and religion.
From that determination of the will an act results, 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 religion. I believe in a principle by virtue of which every determination of the will through duty assuredly effects the promotion of the object of reason in the universal connection of things. 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 inseparable.
Let us proceed with our analysis. The determination 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 the 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 another 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 principle. 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 object 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 reason. All rational beings must, therefore, be maintained 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 theoretical 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 interference by that world-governing principle itself.
Still, the principle of which those many predicates 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 belong, or without generating that substrate by this my very thinking. I do not, however, look upon this substrate as my production, for the simple reason 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 determinations 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 always the same, that of the unity of the principle; and one flowing and changeable thinking, that which proceeds from the one predicate of the principle to its other predicates. These predicates have arisen in me immediately together with my moral resolve, and with the original certainty which accompanies 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 predicates themselves I have immediately.
The only fitting parallel to that immediateness and mediating thinking is furnished by the thinking 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 mediation, but only by my positing them, by my being in them; they are the immediate κατ' έξοχήν. So long as I remain in this consciousness, as I am wholly practical, wholly life and deed, I only know my 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, abstracting from their difference, gather them together in me only in their commonness, that the consciousness 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 principle, but not as a mere quality or predicate, inherent to some substance or another. It will, therefore, have to be described not as spirituality pertaining 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 creating, maintaining, and governing, but as creator, maintainer, 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 abstract, not through a necessary or concrete, thinking. 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 connection; 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 perception, from which they have arisen by an abstracting thinking. Thy soul is nothing but thy thinking, feeling, etc. God is nothing but the creating, governing, 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 something is real substance, it comes under the conditions 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 determinations, borrowed from our soul, do not suit that conception. We ascribe them to our soul, not through mediating thinking, but through immediate consciousness. But concerning God immediate (moral) 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 philosophy, 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 immediate faith I have mentioned; but not to the logical subject, and its erroneous further determinations.
That immediate faith is, therefore, to be preeminently 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 universally 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: 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 itself; and all the teacher needs to do is to call attention 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 culture, 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 reminded.
Hence, there is to be no teaching of religion at all, but merely a developing of that original, religious consciousness.
But least of all should such teaching begin with pretended doctrines of the existence 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, characterized, 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. The conception of God can not be determined by categories of existence, but only by predicates of an activity.
Notes