 How is the feeling of absolute dependence related to episodes of the particular religious emotion-types, such as joy, gratitude, hope, contrition, compassion, and sorrow? The short answer is that for Schleiermacher the feeling of absolute dependence is the essentially religious element in these emotions (see ibid., §5.4–5). Without that element, no emotion would be religious. The feeling of absolute dependence is, in itself, not about events taking place in the world; it is about what is beyond everything that exists, so its “object” is completely unchanging. The particular religious emotions, by contrast, are responses, some pleasant and some unpleasant, to changes in the finite or sensible self-consciousness. Gratitude, for example, is a response to a particular kind of situation in which the subject is the recipient of some benefit; contrition is a response to a situation in which the subject has committed some fault; and so forth. In a more traditional theology, the difference between gratitude to a kind neighbor for a benefit and religious gratitude would be that in the latter case the subject is grateful to God for the benefit. The subject would causally attribute the benefit to God. Similarly, the difference between feeling guilty for having lied to one’s neighbor and religious contrition would be that the subject would think of his fault as having offended God. Something like this idea is behind Schleiermacher’s claim that the feeling of absolute dependence is the religious element in every religious emotion. However, he certainly does not think of the Beyond as actually supplying worldly benefits to people, or as being actually offended when they perform nasty actions. This would bring the Beyond smack into the world and thus destroy the feeling of absolute dependence. Schleiermacher does not give a careful account of the relation between the feeling of absolute dependence and the particular emotions, but just says that the feeling “unites with a sensibly determined self-consciousness, and thus becomes an emotion (Erregung)…” (ibid., §5.5). I offer the following as a possible clarification, using the example of gratitude: some impressive good befalls me, and I recognize it as such. This recognition is an empirically ascertainable consciousness of myself, thus a “sensibly determined self-consciousness.” Then, in conjunction with this sensibly determined consciousness of being “moved” with gratitude, I have the feeling of absolute dependence; and thus my ordinary gratitude becomes religious, or in traditional terms I am moved with gratitude to God.