It remains for us now to refer to a popular conception which, because of the sense attached in it to “natural religion,” makes a definite claim upon our consideration here. What we refer to is the idea that immediate religion must be the true, the finest, the divine religion; and further, that it must, too, have been historically the first form of religion. According to the division we have made, it is the most imperfect, and for that reason the first; and according to this other idea, it is the first, too, but also the truest religion. Natural religion is, as already remarked, so characterised that in it the Spiritual is in this original, untroubled, undisturbed unity with the Natural. This characterisation is, however, taken here as the absolute and true one, and this religion therefore is regarded as the divine religion. Man, it is said, had a true original religion in the state of innocence, before that division or separation which is known as the Fall had as yet appeared in his intelligence. This is founded a priori on the idea that spirits were created by God as the absolutely Good, as images of Himself, and these being in conformity with God, stood in an absolute and essential connection with Him. Under these conditions, Spirit too lived in unity with nature; it was not as yet reflected into itself, had not as yet designed this separation from nature. As regards its practical side, as regards its will, it still remained in the region of happy faith, was still in the state of innocence, and was absolutely good. It is with free-will that guilt first takes its rise, and this means that passion establishes itself in a freedom of its own, that the subject takes out of itself merely such qualities as it has distinguished from what belongs to nature. Plants are in this state of unity; their life is lived in this unity of nature. The individual plant does not become untrue to its nature; it becomes what it ought to be; in it Being and destined character are not different. This separation in anything between what ought-to-be, and its nature, first makes its appearance
