The Doctrine of Right, Duties and Religion for the Lower Class

[p. 272]

|272| those with whom we do not yet stand in a closer relation of acquaintance or friendship. It is falsity when this attestation is bound up with the opposite dispositions. True politeness, however, is to be regarded as a duty, because we should in general have benevolent dispositions towards one another, in order, through the attestation of them, to open the way to closer bonds with them.

(To render a service, a favour, something agreeable to a stranger is politeness. The same, however, we should also render to an acquaintance or friend. Towards strangers and those with whom we do not stand in a closer bond, what matters is the semblance of benevolence and nothing but this semblance. Refinement, delicacy, is to do or say nothing that the relation does not permit. – Greek humanity and urbanity in Socrates and Plato.)

Third Section
Doctrine of Religion

Cross-reference: On the relation of state and religion see the Remark to § 270.

§ 71

The moral law in us is the eternal law of reason, which we must irresistibly respect and by which we feel ourselves indissolubly bound. But we just as immediately perceive the inadequacy of our individuality to it, and recognise it as something higher than we, as an absolute essence, independent of us and self-subsisting.

§ 72

This absolute essence is present in our pure consciousness and reveals itself to us therein. The knowledge of it is, as mediated through it in us, immediate for us and can to that extent be called faith.

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