Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1906-01-05
FROM THE GOLDEN BOOKS.
The Mystery Of Individuality and the
Essence Of RELIGION.

'"S "JoNeJ " HH1lNlouauty ana the
Essence Of ReIleionA
tFrom Jean Paul Friedrich Reichtei's
"Levanna."l
T-God excepted, who is at once The
great original l and Thou-is the noFlest
as well as the most incomprehef ,ible
thing which language expresses oIV b. ich
We contemplate. 1t Is there at atg 1lIke
the whole world Of conscioS at rs. aIch
without A. is nothing we"ehp a dbe
the same thing 10 God as to unoEe. =ous
matter when we think OF the being OF the
one. the existence OF the other. A second
r. Is In other respects even more incon-
ceivable to US than at first. Every 'I' is
personal existence, consequently a
spiritual individuality, -for n bodily one
Is 50 extended that portion OF the sky.
earth city, must belong TO II as a body
this personal existence does not consist
In Ftchte's theory OF rendering the "I''
effectively subjective.-that is, in tho
change OF the reflection OF what was first
mirrored, and which. everywhere return
ing. cuts on all number and time, so that
nothing Is explained by Ii, no reflection
by its counter-refections. Further. IL
does not consist in an accidental Weighing
backward and forward of single powers.
for first, TO every embodied army a gov
erning and controlling master-spirit is
indispensable: and secondly, all distinct
forces In organic connection rise and fall
with the weather glass. age and other
individuality.
But 1t Is an inner sense of all senses; as
feeling is the sense common to the four
external senses. Ii is that in others on
which rests our reliance. friendship or
enmity, and is either an enduring inapti-
tude, or capacity for the arts of poetry
and thought AS the same incomprehensi-
BILE organic unity, subjecting to itself dis
Joined matter. governs and acts differ
entity In plants, In animals and In their
every variety. and multiplles itself in
organic personal existence, so also does
the higher spiritual unity. The theologi-
cal question OF the schools. whether the
Goldman might not have appeared as a
woman, brute animal. or a gourd,-is
symbolieally affirmed by the Infinite vari-
ETY. of individual existences In which
the Divine Being manifests itself 1t is
that which invites all esthetical moral and
intellectual powers into one soul. and,
like the material OF light, itself invisible,
gives and determines the many colored
visible universe. whereby first that phiIo-
sophical pole-word, practical reason,
pure t. ceases only to stand in the zenith
Of heaven, like n pole-star which marks
no north, and consequently no quarter
OF the world.
He who seeks something higher in his
own nature, not merely in degree, than
what life can give or take away that man
has religion, though he only believes in
infinity not in the Infinite,-only in eter-
nifty, without an Eternal For he who re-
CARDS all life as holy and wonderful,
whether 1t dwells in animals or in
plants he, who like Spinoza, by means
Of his noble soul, floats, and rests less
upon steps and heights than upon wings,
whence the surrounding universe changes
into one immense light, life and being,
and embraces him so that he feels alb
sorbed in the great light, and wishes to
be nothing but ray In the Unreasonable
splendor,- such man has, and conse-
quently imparts, religion; since the high
est ever reflects and paints the highest,
even though formless behind the eye.
What then is religion? The belief in
God; for II is not only a sense for the
holy, and belief in the invisible, but a
presentiment of II, without which no king
dom of the incomprehensible were con-
ceivable. Efface God from the heart, and
everything which lies above or below the
earth is only recurring enlargement OF
1t; that which is above the earth would
become only a higher grade OF mechanism,
and consequently earthly.