The Historical Status of Philosophy

II. More Precise Characterization of the Relationship between Philosophy and the Other Manifestations of Spirit

Our second point concerns the more precise and determinate connection between philosophy and other manifestations of spirit. We are confronted with sciences, art, mythology, religion, politics, etc., whose general connection with philosophy has already been treated. Now we want to look at the difference between philosophy and these other manifestations. We do this by delimiting the concept of philosophy, selecting out the moments which thus become important, and applying them to our own subject matter which is the history of philosophy. In so doing our purpose is to separate off and exclude what does not belong to the subject. It is easy enough to say that in the history of philosophy only philosophy itself, in the process peculiar to it, is to be considered, and that everything else, such as religion, etc., is to be left to the side. In general that is quite correct. Still we ask: what is philosophy? Much is put under that heading which we must exclude. If we are to look only at the name we should have to include much that has nothing to do with the concept of philosophy. As for religion, we can also say in general that we have to leave it to one side. In history, however, religion and philosophy have frequently been both connected with each other and in conflict with each other – in the Greek as well as in the Christian era – and their opposition constitutes a very definite moment in the history of philosophy. Properly speaking, then, philosophy only seems to leave religion aside. Historically speaking neither has allowed the other to go untouched; nor must we do so either.

In our investigation we want to look first at the sciences, or at scientific culture as such. After that we must look at religion and particularly at the more precise relationship between philosophy and religion. This relationship must be looked at openly, directly, and honestly; one must not give the impression of wanting to leave religion untouched. To give this impression is to attempt simply to hide the fact that philosophy has been opposed to religion. Religion – which is to say the theologians – pretends to ignore philosophy, in order not to be troubled in its own arbitrary reasonings.

1. Relation of Philosophy to Scientific Culture as Such We begin, then, with scientific culture as such; more precisely with the empirical sciences, which are based on observation, experiment, and reasoning. We must look at them, of course, bearing in mind that this sort of thing has also been called philosophizing. What they have in common with philosophy, after all, is thinking. They belong within the framework of experience, but they are also characterized by thinking, since they strive to discover the universal in experience. Scientific culture, then, shares its formal aspect with philosophy. Religion, on the other hand, shares with philosophy its other aspect, the substantial, which is to say God, the Spirit, the Absolute. To know the essence of this world, of truth, of the absolute Idea, is common ground for both philosophy and religion.

With regard to the matter proper to scientific culture, on the one hand principles have been established as to what is to be done; this involves practical requirements (Gebote, Pflichten). On the other hand we recognize laws, forces, natural classes,’ causes. Matter, then, corresponds to what in the external world are forces and causes and to what in the spiritual world of morality is the substantial, the motivating, the enduring. A content such as this demands, as does philosophy, thinking; and whatever has been thought from this point of view has been called philosophy. Thus, in the history of philosophy what we first meet are the seven wise men of Greece. They, too, are called philosophers, principally because they enunciated a number of moral sayings and principles concerning general moral obligations and essential relationships. Then, in more recent times we see that man began to turn his gaze to things of nature. That was the case particularly in the period subsequent to that of scholastic philosophy. A priori reasoning about the things of nature based on religion or metaphysics was given up, and nature itself was investigated; it was observed, and an attempt was made to know its laws and forces. By the same token research was instituted into moral relationships, civil law, etc. – and this was also called philosophy. It was customary, for example, to speak of Newtonian philosophy, even though it concerned itself principally only with things of nature. In general, then, the form which characterizes philosophy is one according to which, from experience regarding nature, the state, justice, religion, etc., general principles are derived and are enunciated as formal, quite universal principles.

Philosophy, it is said, investigates universal causes, the ultimate grounds of things. Thus, wherever in the sciences universal causes, essential grounds, and principles are enunciated, the sciences have this universality in common with philosophy, and, to be more precise, such principles and grounds are derived from experience and from reflection on it (innere Empfindung). No matter how foreign to the principle of philosophy this last may seem to be, it is nevertheless true with regard to any philosophy that I have received it through my senses and through reflection on what they present to me (meine innere Empfindung) – i.e., through experience – and that on the basis of this experience alone I consider it true. This form of knowing, of taking into oneself, has appeared not only in opposition to religion but also in a negative relation to other philosophies; and this, too, was called philosophy, because it was opposed to whatever is merely positive. Newtonian philosophy comprises only what we now call philosophy of nature – a science based on experience and perception, containing knowledge of laws, forces, and universal properties of nature.

It was a great period in history which saw the emergence of this principle of experience, when man began to see for himself, to feel, to taste, to look on nature as worthwhile, to rely significantly on the testimony of his senses, to hold for true only what was known through the senses. This conviction of the immediate certitude afforded by the senses was the foundation for this so-called philosophy; it was from this testimony of the senses, after all, that the sciences of nature took their impetus. This reliance on the senses was opposed to previous ways of looking at nature; formerly the point of departure had been metaphysical principles. Because men now based their procedures on sensible representations they came into conflict with religion and the state. It was, however, not merely the testimony of the senses which they had set up against a metaphysics of the understanding; still another testimony was highly regarded – namely, that the true could count as true only to the extent that it was to be found in both the heart and the understanding of man. Through this kind of understanding, this thinking and feeling for himself, there resulted an even greater opposition to what was merely positive in religion and contemporary government. Man learned now to do his own observing and thinking, to form his own representations, opposing them to the fixed truths and dogmas of the Church and to then – accepted civil law – or at least he sought new principles to support the old civil law, in order to justify it in the light of these principles. In the precise context in which religion is positive had been found the validation of those principles according to which subjects owed obedience to the authority of the princes; it was the divine authority which gave validity to these principles, because rulers were appointed by God. The basis for this was found in the Jewish laws according to which kings were the anointed of the Lord. (The Mosaic laws had a special validity even with regard to marriage.) Against this whole positive position, against whatever had been imposed by authority, man’s own proper understanding and free thinking rebelled. Among those who thought this way can be counted Hugo Grotius who formulated a law of nations based on what was accepted as law by all peoples, i.e., the consensus gentium. According to this law the purpose of the state was posited as something proper to the state itself, as something immanent in man, rather than based on a divine command. What was accepted as law was derived from what is the ground for man’s being recognized as man, whereas previously everything had been regulated by authoritarian legislation (nach dem Positiven). Positing in this way a ground other than that of authority was called philosophizing, and for this reason philosophy was also called world-wisdom. Because this kind of philosophizing had as its object external nature and the rights of human nature, and because a content such as this owed its origin to the activity of man’s mundane understanding and reason, it was correct to call this world-wisdom. There is no question that philosophy does not limit itself to internal objects; it extends its interest to everything in the surrounding world and, thus, is occupied with mundane, finite things. On the other hand, however, it does not confine itself to the mundane; it has the same goal as religion; and the mundane which it has as its object is nonetheless a determinateness of the divine Idea. In recent times Schlegel has warmed over again the term world-wisdom as a name for philosophy. He intended it, however, ironically; what he meant was that philosophy must give way, when there is question of higher things – for example, of religion. In this he has had a number of followers.

In England under the heading of philosophy is understood natural science. Thus it happens that a journal (like Hermbstadts Journal), for example, which talks about agriculture (manure), economics, industry, chemistry, etc., and tells about discoveries in these areas, is called a philosophical review. By the same token optical instruments, barometers, thermometers, etc., are called philosophical instruments. Even theories, especially those concerned with morality, which are derived more from the feelings of the human heart and from experience than from the concept or from determinations of what is right, in England belong to philosophy. The Scottish moral philosophers in particular should be mentioned in this connection; they reason in a Ciceronian manner, taking as their starting point drives, inclinations, and immediate certainty, i.e., from the sort of thing which Cicero calls insitum natura. In the same way modern English theories of political economy, e.g., that of Adam Smith and of those influenced by him, are counted as philosophy. The result is that, at least in England, the name philosophy is respected, because there whatever is derived from general principles or can be taken out of the realm of experience and brought back to determinate principles is called philosophical. A short time ago a banquet was held in honor of Canning. In his speech of acknowledgment it comes out that he congratulates England, because there philosophical principles are employed in government. Thus, in England at least, philosophy is not a term used ironically.

Now, even though all these ways of viewing things go under the heading of philosophy, we must exclude them from our treatment of the subject, despite the fact that in all of them there is a principle which they have in common with philosophy, i.e., that in them it is one’s self which sees, senses, thinks, is present. Whatever the area may be, this is the great principle opposed to authority. In perception it is 1 myself who perceive; and the same is true of sensing, understanding, thinking. What is to have significance for man must be contained in his own thinking. Properly speaking, “in his own thinking” is a pleonasm; every man must think for himself, no one can think for another, any more than he can eat or drink for another. It is this moment of the self, plus the form which is produced in thinking, the form of universal laws, principles, fundamental determinations, in short the form of universality, that philosophy has in common with those sciences, philosophical points of view, representations, etc., of which we have been speaking; they are what has given to all of them the name philosophy.

2. Relation of Philosophy to Religion The second sphere of those manifestations of spirit which are more closely related to philosophy is the area of religious representations in general. Here belongs primarily religion as such, then mythology and the mysteries, and even to a certain extent poetry. just as the first area of which we spoke had in common with philosophy its formal element, the I and the form of universality, so what is common here is the other side, i.e., the substantial element, the content.

In the various religions, peoples have left a record of the way they thought regarding the being of the world, the absolute, that which is in and for itself. There we find what they held to be the cause, the essence, the substantial, in both nature and spirit. There, too, we discover their opinions regarding the manner in which human spirit or human nature is related to such objects – to the divinity, the true.

In religion, then, we immediately observe two characteristics (Bestimmungen): first, how man is conscious of God, i.e., how in consciousness he represents God, this being the objective form or determination of thought whereby man sets the essence of divinity over against himself, represents it as something other than himself, as an alien being in the beyond. The second characteristic is to be found in devotion and cult, which constitute the overcoming of this opposition, whereby. man raises himself to God and becomes conscious of his unity with God’s being. This is the sense which cult has in all religions. Among the Greeks cult served rather to raise them to an enjoyment of this unity, since for them the being of God was not in itself something beyond them.

Religion and philosophy, then, have as an object in common what is true in and for itself – God, insofar as He is in and for Himself – and man in his relation to God. In religions, men have made manifest the consciousness they had concerning the supreme being. To this extent religions are the supreme work of reason. Thus it is absurd to believe that priests invented religion in order to deceive the people – as though men would permit anything to be imposed on them with regard to the ultimate and supreme being.

Although philosophy has the same object as religion, still in relation to each other they have developed many differences. The first question, then, is: how does philosophy differ from theology and religion in general? The second is: to what extent must we in the history of philosophy take the religious into account?

a. The Form of Philosophy Distinguished from That of Religion. First, then, the question how philosophy and religion differ from each other. In this connection I intend to present their general characteristics and – so far as possible – discuss them.

b. Divine and Human Spirit. Common to both is what is in and for itself, the universal, absolute Spirit. This is spirit, but at the same time it includes nature within itself; it is itself and the grasp of nature within itself. It is not identical with nature in the superficial sense in which the chemically neutral is, but is rather in its own self identical with – nature, or one with itself in nature. Such is its identity with nature that the latter, its negative, the real, is posited only as ideal. That is the idealism of spirit. The universality of spirit, to which both philosophy and religion are related, is absolute, not exterior, universality. It is a universality which penetrates everything, is present in everything. We have to represent spirit to ourselves as free, and freedom of the spirit means that it is with itself, has a rational awareness of itself. Its nature is to grasp the other in such a comprehensive way as to find itself in the other, to unite itself with itself in the other, there to possess and enjoy itself.

Here, then, is manifested the relationship of Spirit to the human spirit. No matter how fragile and isolated individuality may be represented, abstraction must simply be made from this sort of atomistic representation. When spirit is represented in truth it is what is rationally aware of itself (das sich selbst Vernehmende). The difference between the individual and the universal, then, is so to be expressed, that the subjective, individual spirit is the universal divine Spirit, to the extent that there is rational awareness of the latter, to the extent that the latter manifests itself in each subject, each man. The spirit which is rationally aware of absolute Spirit is, then, the subjective spirit.

If we take this determination as our point of departure, then as further determinations we have simply various forms of this rational awareness. What we call religious belief is the substantial, universal manner in which man is rationally aware of the divine Spirit. Apart from belief the divine Spirit is not what he is according to the teaching of the Church. In this way the divine Spirit is not in himself but is present in the spirit of man, in the spirit of those who belong to his community. Then it is that the individual spirit is rationally aware of the divine Spirit, i.e., of the essence of his own spirit, of his own essence, of what is substantial in him; and this essence is precisely the universal in and for itself, the enduring. That is the faith of the Evangelical Church – not an historical (historischer) faith, not a belief in historical (geschichtliche) things; rather this Lutheran faith is the spirit’s own faith, the consciousness whereby it is rationally aware of the substantial in spirit. According to a recent theory of faith it is said: I believe, I have immediate knowledge that I have a body. This, then, is called belief, that something determinate, some content or other is immediately in us, is produced in our consciousness. That is belief in the external sense. But the internal, the religious sense of belief is precisely the knowledge of the absolute Spirit of which we have been speaking; and this knowledge, as it is first of all in the human spirit, is immediate and, as a result, is immediate certitude. It is simply a testimony of man’s spirit, which is the profound root of the identity of spirit in general. Spirit generates (erzeugt) itself, manifests its own self, shows itself and gives testimony of itself also, of its unity with itself. It also has consciousness of itself, consciousness of its unity with its object, because it is itself its own object. Now, when consciousness of this object comes on the scene, develops, and takes form, the content in question can seem to be something given in sensation, sensibly represented, coming from outside; the way in mythology a myth has of coming into being according to an historical pattern. This pattern is external. To faith, however, belongs the testimony of the spirit. The content can, of course, come from outside, be given and received, but the spirit must give testimony to it.

To be more precise and to speak of the Christian religion, we know that Christ came into the world almost 2000 years ago. He said, however, “I am with you all days, even to the end of the world,” and “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them.” Still, this was not to be the sensible presence of this individual person. He also said , when I am no longer with you, “the Spirit will lead you to all truth,” i.e., the relation of externality must first be removed; it is not the true relationship. Herein we find an elucidation (Erklarung) of what we said above.

On the one hand we have to do there with a representative consciousness, where the content is an object, and it is outside us, separated from us. On the other hand we have devotion, cult, the feeling of union with this object. The result is a certain ambiguity; at one time externality is stronger, at another, devotion. At one time the indwelling Christ is sent back 2000 years to Palestine and is simply an historical person in th at land and those surroundings. At another time, however, in devotion and in cult, the feeling of His presence is predominant. Consequently, at this point there is to be found a contrast in religion.

c. Representation and Thought. The form of philosophy differs from the aforementioned form of religion, and we must now get a more precise understanding of this difference. The fundamental connection between religion and philosophy is the nature of spirit itself.

(1) With regard to spirit the point of departure must be [the realization] that spirit is in manifesting itself; it is this one substantial identity, but at the same time, in manifesting itself it is differentiated within itself. This is where its subjective, finite consciousness comes in. (That which has its limit in another, be cause at its limit the other begins, is finite; and this is true only where there is a determination, a difference.) Spirit, however, remains free; it remains with itself in being manifested, with the result that it is not disturbed by reason of the difference. To spirit, that which is differentiated is transparent; it is something clear, not something obscure. To put it another way, for spirit there is nothing determinate in the sense that determination means difference. Now, when there is talk of a limit to spirit, from one point of view this is correct; man is limited, dependent, finite – except insofar as he is spirit. Finitude has to do with the other modes of his existence. To the extent that, even though he is spirit, his attitude is spirit less, he is involved with external things; but when he is spirit and truly spirit he is unlimited. The limits of reason are only the limits of this subject’s reason; but when man’s attitude is genuinely rational he is without limits, infinite. (Of course, infinity is not to be taken in the abstract sense, as a concept of understanding.) Because spirit is infinite it continues to be spirit in all its relationships, expressions, manifestations. The difference between universal, substantial spirit and merely subjective spirit is a difference for spirit itself. Both spirit as object and the content of spirit must be at the same time immanent in subjective spirit; and this can be only when the immanence is spiritual, not natural or immediate. This is the fundamental characteristic of Christianity, which sees man illuminated by grace, by the Holy Spirit (who is essential Spirit). Then it is that the spirit is immanent in man, is, thus, his own spirit. A living spirit such as this is, is, so to speak, phosphorus, the volatile, flammable material which can be ignited both from without and from within. It is ignited from without, for example, when man is taught the content of religion, when his emotions and imagination (Vorstellung) are aroused by such a teaching, or when he accepts it on authority. When his attitude is spiritual, he is on the contrary inflamed from within himself; because he looks for the content of religion within himself, it is from out of himself that he manifests it. Then he is his most intimate self.

(2) To go further, we must speak of the way in which spirit is objective to itself, of what it is for it to be for itself. The form in which it is present can vary; thus it can assume a variety of forms. From these diverse ways of appearing (Gestaltungsweisen) comes the diversity of forms of spirit and, thus, the difference between philosophy and religion.

In religion, spirit has its own peculiar form, which can be sensible, e.g., in the form of art, when art pictures divinity, or in poetry, where likewise the sensible representation constitutes the essence of the being-present. In general we can say that this way of manifesting spirit is representation. It is true, of course, that in religious representation thinking, too, is to some extent involved, but the representation contains thought in such a way that the latter is mingled with an ordinary external content. By the same token, law and morality too are, as it is said, suprasensible, but my representation of them takes its origin from custom, from legal prescriptions (Bestimmungen) which are already there, or from feeling. With regard to philosophy, then, the difference is that in it the same content is grasped, but the form is that of thinking. In religion there are two moments: (1) there is an objective form or determination of consciousness, whereby essential Spirit, the absolute, is present as external to subjective spirit, i.e., as its object, and is represented as historical or as an artistic image, separated in time and space; (2) there is the character or stage of devotion, of intimacy, wherein the separation is removed, the gap is bridged, wherein Spirit and object are one, and the individual is filled with the Spirit. Philosophy and religion have the same object, the same content, the same goal. But, what are in religion two stages, two modes of objectivity, i.e., art, faith and then devotion, are in philosophy united into one; for thought is (a) from the point. of view of the first character objective and has the form of an object; whereas (b) it has also lost the form of objectivity, such that in thinking, content and form are posited as unified. To the extent that what I think – i.e., the content of thinking – is in the form of thought, it no longer stands over against me.

In religion and philosophy, then, there is one substantial content, and only the manner of manifesting it in each is different. These two manifestations, however, are not merely different; in their difference they can appear to be opposed, even contradictory, because the content is represented as essentially linked to the image. Still, even within the framework of religion it is conceded that the different manner of presentation which characterizes religion is not to be taken literally. Thus, it is said: God generated His Son. The divine Spirit’s self-knowledge, His making Himself into an object, is here called generating His Son. In the Son the Father knows Himself, because the Son is of the same nature as He. This relationship, however, is taken from vital nature, not from the spiritual; its expression is characteristic of representation. It is said, of course, that the relationship is not to be taken literally; but it is simply left at that. So too, when the mythologies speak of the wars of the gods, it is admitted that this sort of thing is being said partly of spiritual and partly too of natural forces. Because they are opposed to each other they are in, this way imaginatively represented.

(3) It is natural that these diverse forms, as for the first time they appear in a determinate way, and are aware of the differences which separate them, should be inimical to each other; it is, in fact, inevitable. Thought, after an, first makes its appearance as abstract, i.e., as formally incomplete. The same is true of religion, since initial immediate religious consciousness, even though it is consciousness of spirit, of that which is in and for itself, still involves a sensible form and sensible attributes, i.e., it too is abstract. Thereafter thinking becomes more concrete, penetrates more profoundly into itself, and brings to consciousness the concept of spirit as such. Thus aware of itself, it is no longer inseparable from its abstract determination. The concept of concrete spirit is its own self-conception, or it involves an essential conception of itself, having determination in itself (determination being what is counted as belonging to understanding, to the essence of appearance). Within itself abstract understanding denies all determination and, thus, with regard to God retains what is left, which is no more than His abstract designation as supreme being. On the contrary, the concrete concept has nothing to do with such a caput mortuum; its object is concrete, active, self-determining, living spirit. Subsequently, therefore, concrete spirit recognizes in religion the concrete, determinateness in general, not the sensible but the essential. The Jewish God, for example, God the Father, is abstract. In a later stage of its development spirit recognizes what is essential in that. The concrete, however, is not merely God as such, but rather God determining Himself, positing another than Himself, and yet as Spirit He does not leave the other simply another but is with Himself in this other. Only this latter is the complete divine Spirit. What is concrete in religion, however, can be known and recognized only in the concept which is itself concrete. Therein lies the possibility of reconciling religion and philosophy, when abstract understanding struggles against the former.

The historical progress of this opposition is approximately the following. Thinking takes its start at first within religion’s representations and subsequently parallels them, with the result that the opposition is not yet conscious. Later, however, when thinking is strengthened and relies on itself, it declares its opposition to the form of religion and will not recognize its own concept therein, seeking as it does only itself. This fight against the form of religion took place early in the history of the Greek world. In as early a case as Xenophanes’ we see a philosopher most vigorously combating the representations of Greek popular religion; and later we see the opposition stiffen, as philosophers arose who expressly denied the gods and hence the ,divine character of the popular religion. Socrates was charged with having introduced new gods. As a matter of fact, his daimonion and the overall principle of his system were contrary to the form of Greek religion and of customary morality. Still, he held on to the practices of his religion, and we know that as he was dying he ordered that a cock be sacrificed to Aesculapius. It was only very late that the Neoplatonists recognized the universal content of the popular religion, which had been either expressly attacked or put aside by the philosophers. We see not only that the Neoplatonists gave to mythological representations a meaning proper to thought but that they also employed these representations as a sort of imaginative language for their own system.

The path which this opposition follows in the Christian religion is quite similar. At first thinking is dependent, unfree, tied to the religious form. Thus it is with the Church Fathers. With them, thinking develops the elements of Christian doctrine. (The latter becomes a system only in the hands of the Church Fathers who were also philosophers. The developed aspect of ecclesiastical faith emerged in a special way in Luther’s time. At that time and frequently thereafter in more recent times there was a desire to effect a return of Christian religion to its primitive form. This sort of thing has, it is true, a good sense, in that men were concerned with what is authentic and original in Christian teaching, something which was particularly necessary at the time of the Reformation. Nevertheless, it also involves the incorrect notion that the elements should not be developed.) The first step, then, was that thinking expanded the teaching and developed it into a system; subsequently the doctrine was fixed and made into an absolute presupposition for thinking. First, then, comes the development of doctrine; secondly comes its fixation. Only after that does the opposition of believing and thinking, of immediate doctrinal certitude and so-called reason, enter in. Thinking reached the point where it relied only on itself; the first thing the young eagle of reason did was to soar as a bird of prey to the sun of truth, from there to declare war on religion. Then, however, once more justice is done to the religious content also, in that thinking finds its completion in the concrete concept of spirit and enters into a polemic against abstract understanding.

Religion, then, has a content common to itself and to philosophy; it differs from philosophy only in its form. Thus, all that is required for philosophy is that the form of the concept be so far perfected as to be able to comprise the content of religion. This content is primarily what have been called the mysteries of religion, which is to say, the speculative element in religion. Under that heading is understood first of all something mysterious, something which must remain secret and is not to be made known. It is true, of course, that by their nature, i.e., precisely as a speculative content, mysteries are something mysterious for understanding; not, however, for reason. They are, in fact, precisely the rational element, in the sense of being speculative, i.e., in the sense of the concrete concept. Philosophy is opposed to rationalism, particularly in contemporary theology. Rationalism, it is true, is always talking about reason, but what it is really talking about is merely dry, abstract understanding. Nothing in it. is recognizable as reason, except the moment of self-thinking; but even that is a completely abstract thinking. This sort of rationalism is opposed to philosophy both in its content and in its form. From the point of view of content: it has made heaven empty – reduced the divine to a caput mortuum, and everything else to mere finite entities in space and time. Even from the point of view of form it is contrary to philosophy; for the form of this rationalism is argumentation (Rasonnieren), unfree argumentation, and it declares its opposition to philosophy in particular, in order to be able to continue this sort of argumentation forever. That is no philosophizing, no genuine conceptual thinking (Begreifen). Within religion the opposition to rationalism comes from supranaturalism, and this latter is in regard to true content like philosophy and in agreement with it, but different as regards form; for in supranaturalism the spirit is entirely absent, it has become wooden and accepts only positive authority for its corroboration and justification. The Scholastics, on the contrary, were not this sort of supranaturalists; in their thinking they put the dogma of the Church into the form of concept.

As a thinking of this content in the form of concept, over against the representation which is proper to religion, philosophy has the advantage of understanding both. It understands religion and can accord it a justification; it understands rationalism and supranaturalism. too; and it also understands itself. The converse, however, is not true; religion as such, because its point of view is that of the representation, recognizes itself only in representation, and not in philosophy, i.e., not in concepts, not in universal thought-determinations. Often enough no injustice is being done to a philosophy when the complaint is made that it is opposed to religion; frequently, however, the complaint is also unjustified, namely, when the complaint is made from the religious point of view, simply because religion does not understand philosophy.

Philosophy, then, is not contrary to religion; it grasps the latter in concept. For the absolute Idea, however, for absolute Spirit there must be the form of religion, for religion is the form proper to consciousness of the true, the way it is for all men. The structure of religion is (1) sense perception. and (2) mingling with the latter the form of the universal, i.e., reflection, thinking, but still, abstract thinking, which still contains much that is external. Thereafter a ‘transition is made to the concrete structuring of thoughts, there is speculation on the true, which is then in consciousness according to its true form. Nevertheless, the speculative element which enters into the structuring at this point is not the externally universal form of thinking which is common for all men; and so the consciousness of that which is in itself true must have the religious form.

This is the general justification of the religious form [of spirit’s manifestation].

Up to this point we have given an account of the difference between philosophy and religion. With regard, however, to what we want to treat of in the history of philosophy there are a few further remarks to make in connection with – and partly as a consequence of – what has already been said.

3. The Kinds of Religious Contents which Are to be Eliminated from Philosophical Consideration a. The first remark concerns the simply (uberhaupt) mythological. It is said that mythology contains philosophical affirmations, and, it is also said, since in general religious forms of expression involve philosophical affirmations, philosophy must concern itself with such forms of expression. (i) In this regard the work of my friend Creuzer is well known; therein in a distinctively philosophical way he treated mythology and in general the religious representations, expressions, and usages of ancient peoples, showing what was rational in them. Now this method of treatment is attacked by others as an incorrect and unhistorical procedure. The objection is that it is not an historical fact that such philosophical affirmations are contained therein. Included in the mythological are also the mystery religions of the ancients, and in them we are presented with perhaps more philosophical affirmations than in mythology. That objection has already been taken care of by what was said earlier. It is clear enough that in mythology and in the mystery religions of the ancients such thoughts are to be found, since religions and, by the same token, the mythological elements in them are products of man, wherein he has bequeathed to posterity (niedergelegt hat) what to him was supreme and most profound – his consciousness of what the true is. Consequently there is no question that in the forms of mythology are contained reason, universal notions and determinations, and hence philosophical affirmations also. Now, when Creuzer is faulted for introducing such thoughts where they are not really present, for allegorizing, it is important to note that Creuzer shares with the Neoplatonists the tendency to seek philosophical affirmations in the mythological. That does not, however, mean injecting such elements; they are actually there. This sort of consideration, then, is rational and is to be raised to the absolute level. The religions and mythologies which peoples have developed are products of reason becoming conscious of itself.. No matter how naive or nonsensical they may seem, they still contain the rational moment; instinctive rationality is fundamental to them. The method employed by Creuzer and the Neoplatonists, then, is to be recognized as in itself the true and essential method.

Because, however, the mythological is the sensible, contingent presentation of the concept, what has been thought about it or developed out of it always continues to be bound to its external form. But the sensible is not the genuine element in which thought or concept can be presented.

This sort of presentation, then, is always inadequate to the concept. The sensible form must always be described from many sides, e.g., from those of history, of nature, and of art.

It involves so much by way of contingent addition, which makes it fail to correspond exactly with the concept and, in fact, to contradict the intrinsic concept. Nevertheless the Neoplatonists did achieve a new recognition of their own philosophy under the sensible image proper to mythology, and they employed such images as forms for the expression of their own concepts. It is natural to assume that in the explanation of those images, even when they are connected with an intrinsic concept, a good deal of error gets in, especially when it comes down to details, to the multitude of usages, activities, utensils, vestments, ritual sacrifices, etc.

Therein can be found something analogous to thought, a relationship to thought; but this simply shows how separate from each other are the image and its significance and how much contingency and arbitrariness can intervene and obscure the issue. Still, there is rationality here, and it must be taken into consideration.

It is to be excluded, however, from our examination of the history of philosophy, for in philosophy we have nothing to do with such vague philosophical affirmations – i.e., with general ways of representing the true – or with thoughts which are merely contained in some presentation or other or lie hidden and undeveloped under some sensible image.

We are concerned with thoughts which are externalized and only to the extent to which they are externalized – to the extent, then, that the sort of content proper to religion has appeared, been manifested, and come to consciousness. The difference is enormous.

In a child, too, reason is present, but only as a capacity. In the history of philosophy, however, we are concerned with reason only insofar as it has been articulated in the form of thought. The philosophical affirmations which are contained only implicite in religion, then, do not concern us.