here spoken of is the fear of the Unseen, of the Absolute, the counterpart of my consciousness, the consciousness of the self which is infinite as opposed to me the finite self. Before the consciousness of this Absolute, as being the one single purely negative Power, special forces of any kind disappear, everything which has the mark of the earthly nature upon it simply perishes. This fear, in the form of this absolute negativity of oneself, is the elevation of consciousness to the pure thought of the absolute power of the One. And this fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, which consists in not allowing the particular, the finite by itself, to have a valid existence as something independent. What has a valid existence can have this only as a moment in the organisation of the One, and the One is the abrogation of all that is finite. This wise fear is the one essential moment of freedom, and consists in being freed from all that is particular, in breaking away from all accidental interests, and in general, in the feeling on man’s part of the negativity of all that is particular. It is accordingly not a particular fear of any particular thing, but, on the contrary, it consists in the positing of this particular fear as a thing of nought; it is deliverance from fear. Thus fear is not the feeling of dependence, but rather it is the stripping oneself of dependence of every kind; it is pure surrender of self to the absolute Self, in contrast to which and into which the particular self melts away and disappears.
In this way, however, the subject is only in the infinite One. Absolute negativity, however, is relation to self, affirmation; by means of absolute fear the Self accordingly exists, and exists in its self-surrender, in the absolutely positive. Fear in this way changes inlo absolute confidence, infinite faith. At another stage confidence can take the form of a state in which the individual relies upon himself. This is the stoical freedom in chains. Here, however, freedom does not as yet
