Section LXXVIII. The Inner Revelation and the Conscience. (Concl'd) · SECTION CIII.

2.—Spiritual appropriation relates to all objective existence, nature included, and takes up the spiritual contents thereof into the being of the self-conscious subject,—makes it its personal possession. The moral subject enlarges thus its own spiritual being,—receives the universe as well as God into itself,—forms for itself an inner world which, as a copy of the real world, realizes under its subjective phase the moral end, namely, the effecting of the harmony of existence.

In spiritual appropriation, as the far richer field of this activity, the appropriated object is in no wise destroyed, but on the contrary preserved, nay, brought to its higher truth, namely, in that its spiritual contents not only exist per se, but also exist for the spirit, and have now in the spirit a continued existence even after the object itself outwardly perishes. That which has become a part of history and science has thereby attained to imperishableness. That which externally perishes, the natural existence, is the inferior, the less essential; that which is capable of becoming a possession of the immortal spirit is, in fact, the higher,—the essence, the idea, the spiritual contents of existence. In virtue of their spiritual contents even natural objects receive a sort of immortality by being appropriated by the rational spirit; in a still higher degree is this true of the facts of history. Spiritual appropriation is related to natural appropriation as the spirit to the body; the latter must therefore always be subordinate to the former,—must absolutely serve it.—As all nature is created not only by spirit but also for spirit, and as whatever is spiritually created is likewise for the spirit, hence it is but justice to both natural and historical existence,—but a simple right of the same upon the rational spirit,—that it be appropriated by the latter, and it is a perfectly moral requirement that spiritual appropriating be made an essential part of the moral activity. Only savages know nothing of history, of the permanent preservation of the transitory. The preservation of that which belongs to the spirit, that which has been appropriated by it, is the earliest evidence of the spiritual, the historical character of a people,—of human culture. The most ancient historical nations of heathendom, the Chinese and the Egyptians, place their chief interest in the preserving of transpired events; the Egyptians sought to rescue from perishing even the bodies of men, as the tabernacles of the spirit,—sought to appropriate them to history. The art of writing has as its original purpose, not mutual personal intercourse, but history,—was committed not to perishable leaves but to the rock; and also the most ancient products of architectural skill were , not to purposes of dwellings, but to purposes of history.