Continuation of the Former, and also something about Religious Mysteries.
After the account of the secret society in the last chapter, this seems the most appropriate place to state, for the examination of the thoughtful reader, my opinion about mysteries in general, and about the mysteries of religion in particular.
Mysteries in general are modes of the causal relation between objects in nature,—modes which are real or held to be real, but which cannot be disclosed to every man by the natural use of his powers of knowledge. Eternal truths, that is, those necessary relations of objects which are founded on the nature of our powers of knowledge, however few may be familiar with them, are not, according to this definition, mysteries, because any one can discover them by the use of his powers of knowledge.
On the other hand, the results of sympathy and antipathy, the medical specifics, and similar effects, which some men fall upon by mere accident, and which they afterwards find confirmed by means of observations and experiments, are genuine mysteries of nature, which can be made known to another person, not by the use of his powers of knowledge, but only either by an accident of the same kind, or by communication from the first discoverer. If mysteries of this sort are not confirmed by observation and experiment, the belief in their reality is called superstition.
Religion is a covenant formed between man and another moral being of a higher genus. It presupposes a natural relation between man and this higher moral being, so that, by the mutual fulfilment of their covenant, they advance the interest of each other. If this natural relation (not being merely arbitrary and conventional) is real, and the mutual obligation of the contracting persons is founded on this relation, then it forms a true, but otherwise a false, natural religion. If the mutual obligation between man and the higher being or his representatives is drawn up in a formal code, there arises a positive or revealed religion.
The true religion, natural as well as revealed, which, as already observed, constitutes Judaism, consists in a contract, at first merely understood, but afterwards expressed, between man and the Supreme Being, who revealed Himself to the patriarchs in person (in dreams and prophetic appearances), and made known by them His will, the reward of obeying it and the punishment of disobedience, regarding which a covenant was then with mutual consent concluded. Subsequently, through his representative Moses, He renewed His covenant with the Israelites in Egypt, determining more precisely their mutual obligations; and this was afterwards on both sides formally confirmed on Mount Sinai.
To the thoughtful reader I do not need to say, that the representation of a covenant between God and man is to be taken merely analogically, and not in its strict sense. The absolutely Perfect Being can reveal Himself merely as idea to the reason. What revealed itself to the patriarchs and prophets, suitably to their power of comprehension, in figure, in an anthropomorphic manner, was not the absolutely Perfect Being Himself, but a representative of Him, His sensible image. The covenant, which this Being concludes with man, has not for its end the mutual satisfaction of wants; for the Supreme Being has no wants, and the wants of man are satisfied, not by means of this covenant, but only by observation of those relations between himself and other natural objects, which are founded on the laws of nature. This covenant, therefore, can have its foundation nowhere but in the nature of reason, without reference to any end.
Heathenism, in my opinion, is distinguished from Judaism mainly by the fact, that the latter rests upon the formal, absolutely necessary laws of reason, while the former (even if it be founded on the nature of things and therefore real) rests upon the material laws of nature which are merely hypothetically necessary. From this the inevitable result is polytheism; every particular cause is personified by imagination, that is, represented as a moral being, and made a particular deity. At first this result was a matter of mere Empiricism; but by and by men had occasion to observe that these causes, which were represented as particular deities, were dependent on each other in their effects, and in a certain aspect subordinate to each other. There thus arose gradually a whole system of heathen theology, in which every deity maintains his rank, and his relation to the rest is determined.
Judaism, on the other hand, in its very origin contemplated a system, that is, a unity among the forces of nature; and thereby it received at last this pure formal unity. This unity is merely of regulative use, that is, for the complete systematic connection of all the phenomena of nature; and it presupposes a knowledge of the multiplicity of the various forces in nature. But owing to their excessive love of system, and their anxiety for the preservation of the principle in its purity, the Israelites seem to have wholly neglected its application. The result was that they preserved a religion which was pure indeed, but at the same time very unfruitful, both for the extension of knowledge and for its application in practical life. By this cause may be explained their constant murmuring against the leaders of their religion, and their repeated relapse into idolatry. They could not, like enlightened nations at the present day, direct their attention to purity of principle and useful application of their religion at the same time, and therefore of necessity they failed either in the one or in the other. Finally the Talmudists introduced a merely formal application of religion which aimed at no real end; and by this means they made matters worse and worse.
This religion, therefore, which, by the intention of its founder, should have formed the Jews into the wisest and most intelligent of nations, made them by its injudicious application the most ignorant and unreasonable of all. Instead of the knowledge of nature being combined with the knowledge of religion, and the former subordinated to the latter merely as the material to the formal, the former was altogether neglected; and the principle, maintained in its mere abstractness, continued without any application.
Mysteries of religion are objects and acts, which are adapted to ideas and principles, and the inner meaning of which is of great importance, but which have in their outward form something unseemly or ridiculous or otherwise objectionable. They must therefore, even in regard to their outward form, be kept concealed from the vulgar eye, which cannot penetrate into the inner meaning of anything; and accordingly for it they must be a double mystery. That is to say, the objects or acts themselves constitute the lesser mysteries, and their inner meaning the greater mysteries.
Of this sort, for example, among the Jews, in the tabernacle, and afterwards in the Holy of Holies in the temple, was the ark of the covenant, which, according to the testimony of renowned authors, showed much resemblance to the sacred chest in the innermost shrine of some heathen temples. Thus we find among the Egyptians the casket of Apis, that concealed from the vulgar eye this dead animal, which as a symbol indeed had an important meaning, but in itself presented a repulsive aspect. The ark of the covenant in the first temple contained, it is true, according to the testimony of Holy Scripture, nothing besides the two tables of the law; but of the ark in the second temple, built after the Babylonian captivity, I find in the Talmud a passage which is too remarkable not to be adduced. According to this passage the enemies, who seized the temple, found in the Holy of Holies the likeness of two persons of different sex embracing, and profaned the sacred object by a crass exposition of its inner meaning. This likeness was said to be a vivid sensible representation of the union between the nation and God, and, in order to guard against abuse, had to be withdrawn from the eye of the common people, who cling to the symbol, but do not penetrate to its inner meaning. For the same reason the cherubim also were concealed behind the veil.
Of the same sort were the mysteries of the ancients in general. But the greatest of all mysteries in the Jewish religion consists in the name, Jehovah, expressing bare existence, in abstraction from all particular kinds of existence, which cannot of course be conceived without existence in general. The doctrine of the unity of God, and the dependence of all beings on Him, in regard to their possibility as well as their actuality, can be perfectly comprehended only in conformity with a single system. When Josephus, in his apology against Apion, says, "The first instruction of our religion relates to the Godhead, and teaches that God comprehends all things, is an absolutely Perfect and Blessed Being, and is the sole cause of all existence," I believe that these words contain the best explanation of the otherwise difficult passage, where Moses says to God, "Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you, and they shall ask, What is his name? what shall I answer unto them?" and God replies, "Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob hath sent me unto you, for this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations."[52] For, in my opinion, this passage means nothing more than that the Jewish religion lays at its foundation the unity of God as the immediate cause of all existence; and it says therefore precisely the same as the remarkable inscription on the pyramid at Sais, "I am all that is and was and shall be; my veil has no mortal removed," and that other inscription under the column of Isis, "I am that which is." The name, Jehovah, is called by the Talmudists Shem haezam (nomen proprium), the name of the essence, which belongs to God in Himself, without reference to His operations. The other names of God, however, are appellative, and express attributes which he has in common with all His creatures, only that they belong to Him in the most eminent degree. For example, Elohim is a lord, a judge. El is a mighty one, Adonai, a lord; and the same is the case with all the rest. The Talmudists drive this point so far as to maintain, that the Holy Scriptures consist merely of the manifold names of God.
The Cabbalists made use of this principle. Having enumerated the chief attributes of God, arranged them in order and brought them into a system which they call Olam Eziloth or Sephiroth, they not only picked out an appropriate name for each in the Holy Scriptures, but they made in addition all sorts of combinations of these attributes in various relations, which they expressed by similar combinations of the corresponding names. They could therefore easily expound the Holy Scriptures according to their method, inasmuch as they found therein nothing but what they had before put in themselves.
Besides these there may also be mysteries in a religion which consist in the knowledge that the religion, as understood by enlightened people, has no mysteries at all. This knowledge may be connected either with an endeavour to destroy gradually among the people the belief in mysteries, and to banish the so-called lesser mysteries by publishing the greater, or, on the contrary, with an endeavour to preserve among the people the belief in mysteries, and to make the preservation of the lesser mysteries part of the subject of the greater.
The Jewish religion, according to the spirit of its founder, is of the first kind. Moses, as well as the prophets who followed him, sought constantly to inculcate that the end of religion is not external ceremonies, but the knowledge of the true God as the sole incomprehensible cause of all things, and the practice of virtue in accordance with the prescriptions of reason.
The heathen religions, on the other hand, show evident traces of the second kind. Still I am not, like some, inclined to believe that everything in these was planned for intentional deception, but I believe that the founders of these religions were for the most part deceived deceivers; and this mode of representing the matter is far more in accordance with human nature. I am also unable to imagine that such secret designs could be propagated, by means of a formal tradition, from generation to generation. And, moreover, what would have been the use of this? Have not later generations the same faculty as the earlier of contriving schemes to reach their ends? There are princes who have never read Macchiavelli, and yet have admirably carried his principles into practice.
With regard to the society of pietists described above I am persuaded that it had as little connection with the free-masons as with any other secret society. But conjectures are allowed, and here we have to do merely with the degree of probability. In my opinion there are in every state societies which are essentially secret, but which externally have no appearance of being such. Every body of men with a common interest is to me a secret society. Its aim and principal operations may be ever so well known, still the most important of these remain concealed to the uninitiated. Of such a secret society, as of others, much good as well as evil may therefore be said; and so long as they do not carry their mischief too far, they are always tolerated.
The Society of Pietists had a similar end in view to that of the Order of Illuminati in Bavaria, and employed nearly the same means. Its aim was to spread itself among people wandering in the dark; and it made use of superstition in a remarkable manner, as means to this end. It sought chiefly to attract the youth to itself, and by a sort of empirical knowledge of men, to educate every member to that, for which he seemed to be destined by nature, and to assign him his proper place. Every member of the society was allowed to acquire as much knowledge of its aim and internal constitution, as enabled him to look merely backwards on his subordinates, but not forwards on his superiors. These superiors understood the art of communicating truths of reason by means of sublime figures, and of translating these figurative representations into truths of reason. It might almost be said of them, that they understood the language of animals—a very important art, which is indispensable to every teacher of the people. By doing away with a gloomy piety, their doctrines met with acceptance among the lively youth. The principle of self-annihilation, taught by them, is, when well understood, nothing else than the foundation of self-activity. By its means all the modes of thought and action, which have become rooted by education, habit and communication with others, and by which human activity is wont to receive a wrong direction, are to be destroyed, and one's own free mode of action introduced. Moral and æsthetic feeling can in fact be preserved and perfected by this principle alone. It is only when ill understood, that it can be injurious, as I have shown by the example of this society itself.