EDUARD VON HARTMANN
The Religion of the Future
(London: W. Stewart & Co., 1886): 73, 74, 75
[73] ÒThe man who carries within himself
metaphysical conceptions of such a nature that his emotions are positively
affected by them possesses Religion. Whether he is slightly or deeply moved, whether he receives such
impressions occasionally and by accident, or expressly seeks them and abandons
himself entirely to their influence,—all that depends upon his natural
religious disposition and the culture which he has received. But it is very
rare to a man quite destitute of the elements of a religious disposition,
though with some persons, the feelings aroused by certain metaphysical
conceptions may remain in the purely instinctive and unconscious stage, while,
in others, these same ideas evoke powerful emotion. Now there is a Science of
Metaphysics. But it is not given to all men to attain to Science, least of all
to the scientific study of Metaphysics. And yet every man, as Schopenhauer has
so beautifully shown, has need of Metaphysics; every man has need of
metaphysical ideas in order to satisfy his need of Religion. And therefore
arises the necessity of a set of metaphysical conceptions which can be
communicated and transferred to the minds of others in a way different from
that of Science; it must be, too, a system of Metaphysics which will serve to
satisfy, even in those persons who are strangers to Science, directly, the need of Metaphysics, and, indirectly, the religious need.
This Metaphysic, which we might call popular Metaphysic, is Religion. However, Religion
consists of something more than the metaphysical ideas of the masses; it
contains the [74] capability of discerning the means and directions for
arousing, in a strong and lasting from, the religious sentiment with this
Metaphysic for its foundation,—that is to say, religious cultus; and,
secondly, Religion contains the deductions drawn from this Metaphysic for the
practical conduct of men, in other words, religious Ethics. Cultus belongs to
Religion alone; but Morality constitutes a domain which Religion shares not
only with Science properly so called,—as is the case as regards
Metaphysic,—but also with custom, the origin and development of which are
often unconscious. In custom, Morality appears as something fixed, empirical,
unconscious, and palpably resting on no principle. It is only in Science, as
far as Science attaches Morality to metaphysical principles, and in Religion,
which fulfils the same office, that moral precepts find a justification, and
this justification opposes a barrier, at least theoretically, to the assaults
of the arbitrary individual.
Thus we see that Religion constitutes the whole of
the Philosophy of the masses, since the other elements in Philosophy affect the
masses little or not at all. In fine, Religion comprises all the Idealism of
the masses, Art not being accessible to them, except under a form too coarse to
elevate them to artistic Idealism. Every ideal (or, speaking more exactly, all
ideals of an ideal nature, to the exclusion of the materialistic ideal of a
Social-Democratic Utopia), and every tendency of the heart towards the Ideal,
become incarnate among the masses as Religion. It is Religion alone which
constantly reminds the masses that there is something higher that eating and
drinking and sexual intimacy, that this transient world of the senses is not
the All in All, but only the manifestation of an eternal, super-sensuous
principle of which we see here only the confused shadow. To keep alive this
sentiment in the hearts of simple masses – be it only as a dark
foreboding – is the task common to all Religions when they have raised
themselves above the primitive stage of rude, natural Religion.
[75] The world of metaphysical ideas must always be,
to the religious man, the living source whence the excitement of the emotions
in worship and the influence on the will in moral action arise. When this
source is dried up, worship is petrified into dead, meaningless ceremonies, and
religious Morality becomes converted into abstract precepts or sentimental
phrases by which no living soul on earth could be influenced. On the other
hand, Metaphysics lose their religious character as soon as they cease to be a
direct stimulus to the emotions and to the will, and become mere theory or
pseudo-Science; pure Science, indeed, among philosophy, but pseudo-Science
among theologians who confine their attention to interpreting and systematizing
the traditional dogmas. The masses are by no means clear in their ideas about
the various elements which go to make up Religion, but they instinctively feel
that it is the unity of all
these notions, which is the object of their search in Religion. The masses do
not know Metaphysics by name, but they do know what they require of Religion,
namely, that it should give them the truth; not all the truths
as they lie scattered in the various special Sciences, but the truth which the Universal Science, Philosophy, strives
to attain, the one and eternal truth able to satisfy their unconscious need of
Metaphysics. Not that it can be ever imparted to the masses in all its full
extent and depth, even supposing that Science had really found and formulated
it. No, the super sensuous cannot so easily be made intelligible to the human
understanding. The essence of Truth is a Mystery, and will ever remain so; its
expression will be always only symbolical, never exhaustive or scientific,
whether the symbols consist of abstract notions or of images and figures.