Note (return) — Chapter II
Reading edition
We have, then, in our self-consciousness a feeling of direct dependence, and that to which our minds instinctively trace that dependence we call God. "By means of the religious feeling, the Primal Cause is revealed in us, as in perception, the things external, are revealed in us." 53 The felt, therefore, is not only the first religious sense, but the ruling, abiding, and perfect form of the religious spirit; whatever lays any claim to religion must maintain its ground and principle in feeling, upon which it depends for its development; and the sum-total of the forces constituting religious life, inasmuch as it is a life, is based upon immediate self-consciousness. 54