shouldst be driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided unto [i.e., bestowed upon, largitus est] all nations under the whole heaven.”[1] Thus, the creation out of nothing, i.e., the creation as a purely imperious act, had its origin only in the unfathomable depth of Hebrew egoism.
On this ground, also, the creation out of nothing is no object of philosophy;—at least in any other way than it is so here;—for it cuts away the root of all true speculation, presents no grappling-point to thought, to theory; theoretically considered, it is a baseless air-built doctrine, which originated solely in the need to give a warrant to utilism, to egoism, which contains and expresses nothing but the command to make Nature—not an object of thought, of contemplation, but—an object of utilization. The more empty it is, however, for natural philosophy, the more profound is its “speculative” significance; for just because it has no theoretic fulcrum, it allows to the speculatist infinite room for the play of arbitrary, groundless interpretation.
It is in the history of dogma and speculation as in the history of states. World-old usages, laws, and institutions, continue to drag out their existence long after they have lost their true meaning. What has once existed will not be denied the right to exist for ever; what was once good, claims to be good for all times. At this period of superannuation come the interpreters, the speculatists, and talk of the profound sense, because they no longer know the true one.[2] Thus, religious speculation deals with the dogmas, torn from the connexion in which alone they have any true meaning; instead of tracing them back critically to their true origin, it makes the secondary primitive, and the primitive secondary. To it God is the first; man the second. Thus it inverts the natural order of things! In reality, the first is man, the second the nature of man made objective, namely, God. Only in later times, in which religion is
- ↑ Deut. iv. 19.—“Licet enim ea, quae sunt in coelo, non sint hominum artificia, at hominum tamen gratia condita fuerunt. Ne quis igitur solem adoret, sed solis effectorem desideret.”—Clemens Alex. (Coh. ad Gentes).
- ↑ But of course they only do this in the case of the “absolute religion;” for with regard to other religions they hold up the ideas and customs which are foreign to us, and of which we do not know the original meaning and purpose, as senseless and ludicrous. And yet, in fact, to worship the urine of cows, which the Parsees and Hindoos drink that they may obtain forgiveness of sins, is not more ludicrous than to worship the comb or a shred of the garment of the Mother of God.
