  Nishida’s discussion of the absolute and the finite self does not neglect the notion of religion and its relation to culture and the nation-state. These themes already formed an integral part of his theory of the historical world, but became all the more pressing in a time of world war. The concern with death was perhaps as much a political as a personal matter for Nishida, whose health in 1945 was quickly failing. In one respect, he distanced himself from his milieu, where everyday life was dominated by an authoritarian state. In his last completed essay, he focuses on the individual in relation to an absolute that in no way is subject to an absolutist state. His notion of the essentiality of religion is remarkably individualistic, removed from all social contingencies. He locates the core of religion in the heart of the individual: religious awareness arises in one’s knowing one’s own death.