The Way Towards the Blessed Life; or, The Doctrine of Religion

THE TRtJE LIFE AND THE APPARENT LIFE.

The Lectures which I now commence have been announced imder the title of “The Way towards th© Blessed Life/’ Following the common and customary view, which no one can rectify unless he first accommodate himself to it, I could not avoid thus expressing myself; although, according to the true view of the matter^ the expression” Blessed Life” has in it something superfluous. To wit: — Life is necessarily blessed, for it is Blessedness; the thought of an unblessed life, on the other hand, carries with it a contradiction. Death alone is unblessed. Thus, had I expressed my* self with strict precision, I should have named my proposed lectures “The Way towards Life, or the Doctrine of Life” — or, viewing the idea on the other side, “The Way towards Blessedness, or the Doctrine of Blessedness.” That, in the meantime, not nearly all that seems to live is blessed, arises from this — that what is unblessed does not really and truly live, but, in most of its component parts, is sunk in Death and JS^othingness.