The much-belied doctrine of the heathen philosophers concerning the eternity of matter, or the world, thus implies nothing more than that Nature was to them a theoretic reality. [86] The heathens were idolaters, that is, they contemplated Nature; they did nothing else than what the profoundly Christian nations do at this day when they make Nature an object of their admiration, of their indefatigable investigation. "But the heathens actually worshipped natural objects." Certainly; for worship is only the childish, the religious form of contemplation. Contemplation and worship are not essentially distinguished. That which I contemplate I humble myself before, I consecrate to it my noblest possession, my heart, my intelligence, as an offering. The natural philosopher also falls on his knees before Nature when, at the risk of his life, he snatches from some precipice a lichen, an insect, or a stone, to glorify it in the light of contemplation, and give it an eternal existence in the memory of scientific humanity. The study of Nature is the worship of Nature--idolatry in the sense of the Israelitish and Christian God; and idolatry is simply man's primitive contemplation of Nature; for religion is nothing else than man's primitive, and therefore childish, popular, but prejudiced, unemancipated consciousness of himself and of Nature. The Hebrews, on the other hand, raised themselves from the worship of idols to the worship of God, from the creature to the Creator; i.e., they raised themselves from the theoretic view of Nature, which fascinated the idolaters, to the purely practical view which subjects Nature only to the ends of egoism. "And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldst be driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided unto (i.e., bestowed upon, largitus est) all nations under the whole heaven." [87] Thus the creation out of nothing, i.e., the creation as a purely imperious act, had its origin only in the unfathomable depth of Hebrew egoism. On this ground, also, the creation out of nothing is no object of philosophy;--at least in any other way than it is so here;--for it cuts away the root of all true speculation, presents no grappling-point to thought, to theory; theoretically considered, it is a baseless air-built doctrine, which originated solely in the need to give a warrant to utilism, to egoism, which contains and expresses nothing but the command to make Nature--not an object of thought, of contemplation, but--an object of utilisation. The more empty it is, however, for natural philosophy, the more profound is its "speculative" significance; for just because it has no theoretic fulcrum, it allows to the speculatist infinite room for the play of arbitrary, groundless interpretation.