with reflexion upon finitude and on its opposition to the Infinite. But the negativity of the finite can only come about in a finite manner. Now this is what is generally designated as sacrifice.
Sacrifice directly involves the renunciation of an immediate finitude in the sense of being a testifying that this finitude is not to be my own possession, and that I do not desire to have it for myself. From this standpoint of the religious consciousness, sacrifice is therefore sacrifice in the strict and proper sense. Negativity cannot here reveal itself in an inward process because we are not yet in presence of the depths of the inner life of thought and feeling. Sacrifice does not consist in a “conversion” of the inner life, of the heart and of the natural inclinations, rendering it necessary that these should be broken. On the contrary, what the subject is for itself or in its independent condition, such is it when in immediate possession, and the yielding up of its finitude in worship is only the renunciation of an immediate possession, and a natural existence. In this sense, sacrifice is not any longer present in a spiritual religion, but what is there designated sacrifice can only be such in a figurative sense.
Sacrifice, to speak more precisely, can at this stage be merely a sacrifice of adoration, of praise, the act of testifying that I have nothing peculiar to myself but that I relinquish it in thinking of myself in relation to the Absolute. He to whom the possession is yielded up, is not to be made richer by means of it; all that happens is that the subject in this renunciation gets for itself the consciousness of the removal of separation, and its action is in so far purely joyous action. This too is the general signification of gifts in Eastern countries, subjects or vanquished enemies bring presents to the king, not that he may be made richer, for everything is already assigned to him, and everything belongs to him.
Further, too, sacrifice may assume the character of a
