Religion arises from the fact that man objectifies his own true essence, and opposes it to himself as a personal being, without coming to a consciousness of this divestment of self, of the identity of the divine and human nature.

Man early objectifies the qualities he finds in himself and his fellows, regards them as entities, is prostrated in awe and worship before them, conceives them to be gods.

Thus, "for example, if I would perform an act of charity pure and simple, and wish to justify this act rationally, I must imagine an eternal Charity at the ground of things and of myself, I must objectify the sentiment which leads to my action; and here the moral agent plays the same rôle as the artist....

The time of waiting, the process of objectifying the subjective, lived through by the help of an overstrained imagination, all this laid great demands upon the psychical and physical constitution of Mohammed.