and feeling, the practical as a unity of will and feeling. To the former, religion is the bliss of knowing God; to the latter, the bliss of loving God. But then knowledge and will would be divorced from each other, whereas, in order to religion, they must be inseparably united. For neither can there be a direction of the will to God, unless there is a knowledge of the aim and import of the effort, which is itself only religious as a desire to be under God's governance; nor is religious knowledge possible without religious impulse and will, for the will must give the spirit the direction Godward, or keep it in that condition, if actual religion is to be the result. And religion itself is a course of spiritual action, no pure passivity. There is in it the highest energy of spirit, even if the only effect of the energy be to restore the most intense receptiveness for God.

1

4. The only course open, therefore, is to claim for religion all these three functions, not one merely, or two, as its constituent elements. What we have hitherto found apagogically, that all the three fundamental powers of spirit combine as coefficients in forming religion, is confirmed by Holy Scripture, and may be verified on positive grounds. The entire spirit with all its energy is claimed for religion, when it is said: We are to love God with the whole heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. The matter in question in religion is not a receiving of this or that gift of God, but the reception of God, communion with the entire, i.e. personal God, His favour and grace. Hence religion does not become reality in its subjective aspect, unless man as a whole, in his God-reflecting totality, enters into living relation with God. Unless religion dimly or clearly recognises God as its object, it cannot even know with what it has to do in the act of feeling and willing. But the object can only be given in a spiritual way, and to consciousness, through the medium of knowledge, which no doubt, as will be seen later, must be based on an anticipatory act of God to and in man. Just so, without movement towards God, without exercise of will, actual religion is impossible. A mere involuntary, so to speak nature-prompted

1 Matt. xxii. 37 ff.; Mark xii. 28-31; 1 John iv. 8.

* In saying this we acknowledge the element of truth in the efforts of those who, in opposition to the absolute sense of dependence, discover or wish to establish the

sense, e.g. of omnipotence, of absolute dependence on God, would not be religion. There is even such a thing as an irreligious feeling of absolute dependence.1-Again, without internalizing feeling, the object-God—is left either an object for will merely, an Ought, or an externally-remaining object for knowledge. The former would be Practicalism, the latter Intellectualism, but neither is religion. Feeling is the place

where what holds good for will or knowledge is transformed. into subjective, personal life.

5. But if, as shown, these three functions must co-operate to constitute religion, the question arises further, Is their simultaneous co-operation possible? And if so, is religion limited to moments when they co-operate in a state of equipoise, or may it have existence in the comparatively independent action of these functions? They are all receptive to Godconsciousness, all claimed for it, as they all need it in order to their completion. They all co-operate in constituting religion, and their isolation or inactivity is precluded by its means. But seeing that the preponderance of one function, e.g. of will, or feeling as mere self-perception, has for its obverse the suppression of the others for the moment in question, the most favourable attitude of the spirit for realizing religion must be a condition that is neither absorbed in knowledge, nor in mere self-feeling or willing, but where the spirit in the concentrated unity of its powers is turned in its receptiveness actively and as a totality towards God, who is also a totality. If there is such a thing as a simultaneous cooperation of these powers, their simultaneous existence, which nature of religion in freedom, in the endeavour to rise superior to the limits of the finite. But they are wrong in their unwillingness to presuppose at the basis of this impulse to rise above the finite a drawing of the living God, who, in the absolute feeling of dependence, reveals Himself to the spirit as infinite power, and does this to the inner consciousness, in order that the will may affirm this dependence. But if the starting-point is not, in accordance with the actual state of things, God's objective act or testimony to Himself, but merely man's freedom and activity of knowledge and will, then the idea of God becomes a mere subjective product, and the entire subsequent religious process cannot then escape a one-sided subjective character. The security against this error must be found in the consideration that the instinct of freedom to rise above the finite must spring from God, while God cannot be conceived deistically over against the established world, but "in Him we live, move, and have our being."

1 Jas. ii. 19.

in God is absolute, may occur in a reflected way in man, and fill certain moments of time. There could be no interchange between the opposite actions of emergence out of self and recurrence into self, unless there were given as points of transition moments of equipoise between knowledge and will, in which, while man exists also within himself, he need by no means be under the necessity during this spiritual existence in and with himself of being conscious only of self. Knowledge and will are not extinguished in feeling, but continue to act as potencies therein. Otherwise, it would be inconceivable how moments of preponderance on the side of knowledge or will can again follow. We must add the consideration, that those so-called fundamental powers are not to be regarded as parts of the soul, but in each one the entire soul exists, though in a different character. If, therefore, all that is necessary is a heightened energy of spirit, an actual co-operation-jointworking of the factors involved in every form of the spirit's existence, we have in this case that concentrated unity of spirit, without one-sided preponderance of one of the three factors, which we seek. This primitive totality recurring also at every stage, we call mind.1 The word mind or heart deserves the preference above the expression "feeling," because "feeling" leans too much to a subjective conception of religion. Moreover, by mind or heart the totality of the energizing spirit is better expressed. On the other hand, in the expression "mind," subjective participation is completely assured, while the co-operation of the other factors is also assumed.

But while religion is primarily a characteristic of spirit in its original unity or entireness, the question occurs, Are merely those moments of combined, collective activity of the mind to be put to the account of religion, or also conditions of life, when the spirit exercises one of its separate functions, e.g. knowledge or will? Primarily of course the life of religion is generated in the collective faculties of the heart, in moments of undivided, harmoniously co-operating power and energy, since religion cannot originate in a single faculty as such. But to limit religion to moments of undivided existence would be to exclude it from a vast number of conscious moments, 1 Even Schleiermacher, Christl. Glaube, I. p. 8, approves the phrase of Steffens: Immediate presence of the entire undivided existence.

DORNER.-CHRIST. DOCT. II.

H

whereas it lays claim to all. And then would arise the double mischief, that many moments of time would necessarily be irreligious, and that religion would be unable to operate as a principle, and by permeating all powers with soul, to assimilate them to itself, which is the only way in which these powers can attain their harmony and consummation. We hold, therefore, that the spirit of religion is able to continue in the functions during their comparatively independent action, even as we speak of a spirit of prayer outside the moments of worship proper (§ 48, 3), and that this, so far from harming religion, is the means, since moments of undivided concentration constantly recur, of working out for it an ever higher and richer unity. There must be a religious knowing, willing, and feeling; all these single functions are susceptible to and in need of religion, even as the corresponding faculties co-operate in constituting the idea of religion. Those are creative moments in religion, when feeling is not absorbed in consciousness of a single condition of delight or aversion, and will and knowledge are not surrendered to a single object, but when the soul is all within itself, but for the purpose of raising itself in the concentrated unity of its powers to God. Other states in part prepare for, in part live upon, these.-If religion, then, is a matter of the mind or heart, we have therewith indicated the sphere it requires; but as other phenomena may possibly occur in the same territory, religion is not yet adequately defined. Not all moments of the undivided spiritual existence must perforce be religious; for certain as it is that it is only religion through which all the powers can attain perfect development and unity, still to the development of man, and also of religion, a certain unity must be presupposed, which yet is not itself actual religion.

§ 47.-The Nature of Religion.

Religion is the living, reciprocal relationship of God to man and man to God. Thus, on God's part it is His selfmanifestation, first of His majesty and power, secondly of His will; on man's part, primarily the consciousness of absolute dependence on God and surrender to Him.

Seeing that on God's part it is the communicative relation of God to man, on the basis of absolute dependence and humility, man is in religion filled with divine life in knowledge, freedom, and blessedness.

1. Religion is a vital relation of two parties, God and man, and therefore cannot subsist where only one member of the antithesis is active. Were it only the individual subject, there might arise an ideal perception of self, perhaps in distinguishing the ideal from the empirical Ego; but unless at least a germ of the distinction between the human Ego and another real being is also involved, there would be no question of a religious relation, but merely of a moral relation to oneself. But dependence on oneself is merely freedom. Were only the divine factor active, there could be no question of absolute dependence, or of communication; for that which is absolutely dependent would be wanting. It is no accident that the religion of the Old and New Testament is designated by the term covenant, with which the word religio is perhaps connected; for in a covenant a communion of two parties is implied, which is regarded on both sides as a fixed, so to speak binding, vital relation.

2. Let us consider the objective and subjective aspect of this relation in general as such. Man alone cannot generate or create religion. Many indeed believe this, and, busying themselves with fanciful pictures of their own making, call it natural religion, or give the name of religion to moral conduct, to submission to a law, or finally, to certain higher moods in which the soul, so to speak, vibrates with feeling. But intercourse with the pictures of one's own fancy and the moods of feeling resulting therefrom, is merely a kind of intercourse with oneself and not religion; and the same is true of the submission of the will to laws prescribed by the moral consciousness or conscience. Religion presupposes something divine and a perception of the divine as a priori to it; but its aim and effort is communion with the living God. Its concern is with the right settling of the relation, already existing in fact, between God and man, with His immediate grace and favour, then with knowledge of His greatness and a walk well-pleasing in His sight, in a word, with perpetually renewed communion with