308 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



was in immediate contact that it was at one with 

 the Infinite and the Eternal. But Schleierinacher never 

 lost himself so completely in this spiritual or cosmic 

 pantheism as some other contemporary thinkers, at 

 least transiently, did ; for he had an equal sense for 

 the value of individual existence, for the importance 

 of personal independence and individuality of develop- 

 ment. In this respect his view was more akin to that 

 of Leibniz who, in his ' Monadology,' opposed the pan- 

 theism of Spinoza. Schleiermacher thus early elaborated 

 a special expression in which the oneness of the In- 

 dividual and the All could be combined with a distinct 

 subjective feeling; this he described as the feeling of 

 absolute dependence as far as the individual, the finite 

 self is concerned. In the two most original of his earlier 

 writings in his ' Addresses/ 1799, and his ' Monologues,' 

 1801, he emphasises what he considers to be equally 

 important manifestations of the religious sentiment 

 viz., the feeling of being one with the All, and at the 

 same time of being individually, though absolutely, de- 

 pendent upon it. To give and to find oneself, to be 

 equally distant from the egotism of the lower self and 

 from an exaltation of the logical idea ; that is, for 

 Schleiermacher, the essence of the religious sentiment 

 or pious feeling : in it, whoever loses his own self in 

 the Universal, at the same time gains the intrinsic joy 

 of this absorption or devotion. Eeligion is accordingly 

 neither knowledge nor action but a state of feeling, 

 the sentiment of an all-embracing and all-absorbing 

 life. Eeligious doctrines or dogmas result from a 

 reflection upon this religious sentiment. They are, 



