consists in a dependent, limited, finite, created being. Before all thinking and willing, before all reasoning and action, we are and exist, exist in a definite way, and inseparable from these is a consciousness of our being and of its specific mode. The core of our self-consciousness is, as Schleiermacher perceived much more clearly than Kant, not autonomy but a feeling of dependence.42 In the act of becoming conscious of ourselves, we become conscious of ourselves as creatures. This dependence