Inconsistent emptiness; and, qualified by his relation

to an Other, he is distracted finitude. God is therefore

taken, again, as transcending this external relation. He

wills and knows himself, and he finds his reality and

self-consciousness, in union with man. Religion is

therefore a process with inseparable factors, each

appearing on either side. It is the unity of man and

God, which, in various stages and forms, wills

and knows itself throughout. It parts itself into

opposite terms with a relation between them; but in the

same breath it denies this provisional sundering, and it

asserts and feels in either term the inward presence of

the other. And so religion consists in a practical

oscillation, and expresses itself only by the means of

theoretical compromise. It would shrink perhaps from the

statement that God loves and enjoys himself in human

emotion, and it would recoil once more from the

assertion that love can be where God is not, and,

striving to hug both shores at once, it wavers

bewildered. And sin is the hostility of a rebel against

a wrathful Ruler. And yet this whole relation too must

feel and hate itself in the sinner's heart, while the

Ruler also is torn and troubled by conflicting emotions.

But to say that sin is a necessary element in the Divine

self-consciousness--an element, however, emerging but to

be forthwith absorbed, and never liberated as such--this

would probably appear to be either nonsense or

blasphemy. Religion prefers to put forth statements

which it feels are untenable, and to correct them at

once by counter-statements which it finds are no better.

It is then driven forwards and back between both, like a

dog which seeks to follow two masters. A discrepancy

worth our notice is the position of God in the universe.

We may say that in religion God tends always to pass

beyond himself. He is necessarily led to end in the

Absolute, which for religion is not God. God, whether a

"person" or not, is, on the one hand, a finite being and

an object to man. On the other hand, the consummation,

sought by the religious consciousness, is the perfect

unity of these terms. And, if so, nothing would in the

end fall outside God. But to take God as the ceaseless

oscillation and changing movement of the process, is out

of the question. On the other side the harmony of all

these discords demands, as we have shown, the alteration

of their finite character. The unity implies a

complete suppression of the relation, as such; but, with

that suppression, religion and the good have altogether,

as such, disappeared. If you identify the Absolute with

God, that is not the God of religion. If again you

separate them, God becomes a finite factor in the Whole.

And the effort of religion is to put an end to, and

break down, this relation--a relation which, none the

less, it essentially presupposes. Hence, short of the

Absolute, God cannot rest, and, having reached that

goal, he is lost and religion with him. It is this

difficulty which appears in the problem of the religious

self-consciousness. God must certainly be conscious of

himself in religion, but such self-consciousness is most

imperfect. For if the external relation between God and

man were entirely absorbed, the separation of subject

and object would, as such, have gone with it. But if

again the self, which is conscious, still contains in

its essence a relation between two unreduced terms,

where is the unity of its selfness? In short, God, as

the highest expression of the realized good, shows the

contradiction which we found to be inherent in that

principle. The falling apart of idea and existence is at

once essential to goodness and negated by Reality. And

the process, which moves within Reality, is not Reality

itself. We may say that God is not God, till he has

become all in all, and that a God which is all in all is

not the God of religion. God is but an aspect, and that

must mean but an appearance, of the Absolute.

Through the remainder of this chapter I will try to

remove some misunderstandings. The first I have to

notice is the old confusion as to matter of fact; and I

will here partly repeat the conclusions of our foregoing

chapters. If religion is appearance, then the self and

God, I shall be told, are illusions, since they will not

be facts. This is the prejudice which everywhere Common

Sense opposes to philosophy. Common Sense is persuaded

that the first rude way, in which it interprets

phenomena, is ultimate truth; and neither reasoning, nor

the ceaseless protests of its own daily experience, can

shake its assurance. But we have seen that this

persuasion rests on barbarous error. Certainly a man

knows and experiences everywhere the ultimate Reality,

and indeed is able to know and experience nothing else.

But to know it or experience it, fully and as such, is a

thing utterly impossible. For the whole of finite being

and knowledge consists vitally in appearance, in the

alienation of the two aspects of existence and content.

So that, if facts are to be ultimate and real, there are

no facts anywhere or at all. There will be one single

fact, which is the Absolute. But if, on the

other hand, facts are to stand for actual finite events,

or for things the essence of which is to be confined to

a here or a now--facts are then the lowest, and the most

untrue, form of appearance. And in the commonest

business of our lives we rise above this low level.

Hence it is facts themselves which, in this sense,

should be called illusory.

In the religious consciousness, especially, we are

not concerned with such facts as these. Its facts, if

pure inward experiences, are surcharged with a content

which is obviously incapable of confinement within a

here or a now. And, in the seeming concentration within

one moment of all Hell or all Heaven, the

incompatibility of our "fact" with its own existence is

forced on our view. The same truth holds of all external

religious events. These are not religious until they

have a significance which transcends their sensible

finitude. And the general question is not whether the

relation of God to man is an appearance, since there is

no relation, nor any fact, which can possibly be more.

The question is, where in the world of appearance is

such a fact to be ranked. What, in other words, is the

degree of its reality and truth?

To enter fully into such an enquiry is impossible

here. If however we apply the criterion gained in the

preceding chapter, we can see at once that there is

nothing more real than what comes in religion. To

compare facts such as these with what is given to us in

outward existence, would be to trifle with the subject.

The man, who demands a reality more solid than that of

the religious consciousness, seeks he does not know

what. Dissatisfied with the reality of man and God as he

finds them there in experience, he may be invited to

state intelligibly what in the end would content him.

For God and man, as two sensible existences, would be

degraded past recognition. We may say that the God which

could exist, would most assuredly be no God.

And man and God as two realities, individual and

ultimate, "standing" one cannot tell where, and with a

relation "between" them--this conjunction, we have seen,

is self-contradictory, and is therefore appearance. It

is a confused attempt to seize and hold in religion that

Absolute, which, if it really were attained, would

destroy religion. And this attempt,

by its own inconsistency, and its own failure and

unrest, reveals to us once more that religion is not

final and ultimate.

But, if so, what, I may be asked, is the result in

practice? That, I reply at once, is not my business; and

insistence on such a question would rest on a hurtful

prejudice. The task of the metaphysician is to enquire

into ultimate truth, and he cannot be called on to

consider anything else, however important it may be. We

have but little notion in England of freedom either in

art or in science. Irrelevant appeals to practical

results are allowed to make themselves heard. And in

certain regions of art and science this sin brings its

own punishment; for we fail through timidity and through

a want of singleness and sincerity. That a man should

treat of God and religion in order merely to understand

them, and apart from the influence of some other

consideration and inducement, is to many of us in part

unintelligible, and in part also shocking. And hence

English thought on these subjects, where it has not

studied in a foreign school, is theoretically worthless.

On my own mind the effect of this prejudice is

personally deterrent. If to show theoretical interest in

morality and religion is taken as the setting oneself up

as a teacher or preacher, I would rather leave these

subjects to whoever feels that such a character

suits him. And, if I have touched on them here, it was

because I could not help it.

And, having said so much, perhaps it would be better

if I said no more. But with regard to the practical

question, since I refuse altogether to answer it, I may

perhaps safely try to point out what this question is.

It is clear that religion must have some doctrine,

however little that may be, and it is clear again that

such doctrine will not be ultimate truth. And by many it

is apparently denied that anything less can suffice. If

however we consider the sciences we find them too in a

similar position. For their first principles, as we have

seen, are in the end self-contradictory. Their

principles are but partially true, and yet are valid,

because they will work. And why then, we may ask, are

such working ideas not enough for religion? There are

several serious difficulties, but the main difficulty

appears to be this. In the sciences we know, for the

most part, the end which we aim at; and, knowing this

end, we are able to test and to measure the means. But