[Footnote B:  Ibid.]

The divorce is real, although ordained, but it is possible only in so far as man, by means of reason, constitutes his own ends of action.  Impulse cannot bring it about.  It is reason that enables man to free himself from the despotic authority of outer law, to relate himself to an inner law, and by reconciling inner and outer to attain to goodness.  Thus reason is the source of all morality.  And it also is the principle of religion, for it implies the highest and fullest manifestation of the absolute.

Although the first aspect of self-consciousness is its independence, which is, in turn, the first condition of morality, still this is only the first aspect.  The rational being plants himself on his own individuality, stands aloof and alone in the rights of his freedom, in order that he may set out from thence to take possession, by means of knowledge and action, of the world in which he is placed.  Reason is potentially absolute, capable of finding itself everywhere.  So that in it man is “honour-clothed and glory-crowned.”

  “This is the honour,—­that no thing I know,
  Feel or conceive, but I can make my own
  Somehow, by use of hand, or head, or heart."[A]

[Footnote A:  Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau.]

Man, by his knowledge, overcomes the resistance and hostility of the world without him, or rather, discovers that there is not hostility, but affinity between it and himself.

  “This is the glory,—­that in all conceived,
  Or felt or known, I recognize a mind
  Not mine but like mine,—­for the double joy,—­
  Making all things for me and me for Him."[A]

[Footnote A:  Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau.]

That which is finite is hemmed in by other things, as well as determined by them; but the infinite is all-inclusive.  There exists for it no other thing to limit or determine it.  There is nothing finally alien or foreign to reason.  Freedom and infinitude, self-determination and absoluteness, imply each other.  In so far as man is free, he is lifted above the finite.  It was God’s plan to make man on His own image:—­

        “To create man and then leave him
  Able, His own word saith, to grieve Him,
  But able to glorify Him too,
  As a mere machine could never do,
  That prayed or praised, all unaware
  Of its fitness for aught but praise or prayer,
  Made perfect as a thing of course."[B]

[Footnote B:  Christmas-Eve.]

Man must find his law within himself, be the source of his own activity, not passive or receptive, but outgoing and effective.

  “Rejoice we are allied
  To That which doth provide
  And not partake, effect and not receive! 
  A spark disturbs our clod;
  Nearer we hold of God
  Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe."[C]

[Footnote C:  Rabbi Ben Ezra.]