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 Thus inasmuch as Other-Being has been characterised as the totality of appearance or manifestation, it expresses in itself the Idea, and it is this which is really designated by the term, the wisdom of God. Wisdom is, however, so far a general expression, and it is the business of philosophical knowledge to understand this conception in Nature, to conceive of it as a system in which the Divine Idea is mirrored. This Idea is manifested, but its content is just the manifestation, and consists in its distinguishing itself as an Other, and then taking back this Other into itself, so that the expression taking back applies equally to what is done outside and inside. In Nature these stages break up into a system of kingdoms of Nature, of which that of living things is the highest.

Life, however, the highest form in which the Idea exhibits itself in Nature, is simply something which sacrifices itself and whose essence is to become Spirit, and this act of sacrifice is the negativity of the Idea as against its existence in this form. Spirit is just this act of advance into reality by means of Nature, i.e., Spirit finds its antithesis, or opposite, in Nature, and it is by the annulling of this opposition that it exists for itself and is Spirit.

The finite world is the side of the difference which is put in contrast with the side which remains in its unity; and thus it breaks up into the natural world and into the world of finite Spirit. Nature enters into a relation with Man only, and not on its own account into a relation with God, for Nature is not knowledge; God is Spirit, but Nature knows nothing of Spirit.

Nature has been created by God, but she does not of herself enter into a relation with God, by which is meant that she is not possessed of knowledge. She stands in a relation to Man only, and in this relation to Man she represents what is called the side of his dependence.


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 In so far as she is known by thought to have been created by God, and to have understanding and reason in her, she is consciously known by Man as a thinking being; and she is put in relation with the Divine to the extent to which her truth or true nature is recognised. The discussion of the manifold forms expressive of the relation of the finite spirit to Nature does not belong to the philosophy of religion. Their scientific treatment forms part of the Phenomenology of Spirit, or the Doctrine of Spirit. Here this relation has to be considered in so far as it comes within the sphere of religion, and in such a way as to show that Nature is for Man not only the actual immediate external world, but a world in which Man knows God; Nature is thus for Man a revelation of God. We have already seen how this relation of Spirit to Nature is present in the ethnic religions in which we encountered those forms which belong to the advance of Spirit from what is immediate to what is necessary and to the thought of something which acts wisely and in accordance with an end, Nature meanwhile being regarded as contingent. Thus the consciousness of God on the part of the finite spirit is reached through Nature, mediated by it. Man sees God by means of Nature; Nature is so far merely a veiling and imperfect embodiment of God.

What is distinguished from God is here really an Other, and has the form of an Other or object; it is Nature which exists for Spirit and for Man. It is through this that the unity of the two is to be brought about, and the consciousness attained that the end and the essential character of religion is reconciliation. The first thing is the abstract act of becoming conscious of God, that Man raises himself in Nature to God. This stage we saw represented in the proofs of the existence of God, and connected with it, too, are those pious reflections as to how gloriously God has made everything how wisely He has arranged all things. This elevation

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 of the soul takes it straight to God, and may start from any set of facts. The pious mind makes edifying reflections upon what it sees, and beginning with what is most insignificant and most special, recognises in it something which is essentially higher. Very often you find mixed up with these reflections the perverted notion that what goes on in the world of Nature is to be regarded as belonging to a higher order of things than what is found in the human sphere. This way of looking at things, however, is inadequate, from the very fact that it starts from what is individual or particular. We may look at things in another way which will be the opposite of this. The cause, it may be argued, must correspond to the phenomenon, and must itself contain the element of limitation which belongs to the phenomenon; we desire a particular ground or basis upon which this particular phenomenon is based. This element of inadequacy always attaches to the consideration of any particular phenomenon. Further, these particular phenomena belong to the realm of the natural; God, however, must be conceived of as Spirit, and the element in which we recognise His presence must also be spiritual. “God thunders with His thunder,” it is said, “and is yet not known.” The spiritual man, however, demands something higher than what is merely natural. If God is to be known as Spirit, He must do more than thunder.

The truth is that we reach a higher mode of viewing Nature, and perceive the deeper relation in which it must be placed in regard to God, when it is itself conceived of as spiritual, i.e., as something which is the natural side of Man’s nature. It is only when the subject ceases to be classed as belonging to the immediate Being of the Natural, and is made to appear what it implicitly is, namely, movement, and when it has gone into itself, that we get finitude as such, and finitude, in fact, as shown in the process of the relation in which the need of the


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 absolute Idea and its manifestation come to exist for it. What comes first here is the necessity or need of truth, while the kind and manner of the manifestation of the truth is what is second.

As regards the first point, the necessity for truth, it is presupposed that there exists in subjective Spirit a demand to know the absolute truth. This necessity directly involves the supposition that the subject exists in a state of untruth; as Spirit, however, the subject is at the same time implicitly raised above this state of untruth, and for this reason its condition of untruth is one which has to be surmounted.

Untruth more strictly defined means that the subject is in a state of alienation from itself, and the need for truth so far expresses itself in the fact that this division or alienation is in the subject, and is just because of this also annulled by truth, that it is thus changed into reconciliation, and that this reconciliation which is within itself can only be a reconciliation with the truth.

This is the necessity or need of truth in its more strictly defined form. Its essential character implies that the alienation is really in the subject, that the subject is evil, that it is inner division or alienation, inherent contradiction, not, however, contradiction of the mutually exclusive kind, but is something which at the same time keeps itself together, and that the alienation takes place only when it is an inner contradiction in the subject.

3. This reminds us that we are called on to define the nature or essential character of Man, and to show how it is to be regarded, how Man ought to regard it, and what he has got to know of it.

And here we (1) at once meet with characteristics which are mutually opposed: Man is by nature good, he is not divided against himself, but, on the contrary, his essence, his Notion, consists in this, that he is by nature good, that he represents what is harmony with itself, inner peace; and—Man is by nature evil.


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 The first of these characteristics thus means that Man is by nature good, that his universal substantial essence is good; the second characteristic is the opposite of this. This, then, to begin with, is the nature of these contrary propositions, so far as we are concerned, and so far as the outward way of looking at things is concerned. The next step is to perceive that we do not merely thus reflect upon things, but that Man has an independent knowledge of himself, and knows how he is constituted and what is his essential character.

We have, to start with, the one proposition: Man is by nature good, what has no element of division; thus he has no need of reconciliation, and if reconciliation is not at all necessary, then the course of development we are considering here and this whole part of the subject are superfluous.

To say that Man is by nature good amounts substantially to saying that he is potentially Spirit, rationality, that he has been created in the image of God; God is the Good, and Man as Spirit is the reflection of God, he is the Good potentially. It is just on this very proposition and on it alone that the possibility of his reconciliation rests; the difficulty, the ambiguity is, however, in the potentiality.

Man is potentially good—but when that is said everything is not said; it is just in this potentiality that the element of one-sidedness lies. Man is good potentially, i.e., he is good only in an inward way, good so far as his notion or conception is concerned, and for this very reason not good so far as his actual nature is concerned.

Man, inasmuch as he is Spirit, must actually be, be for himself, what he truly is; physical Nature remains in the condition of potentiality, it is potentially the Notion, but the Notion does not in it attain to independent Being, to Being-for-self. It is just in the very fact that Man is only potentially good that the defect of his nature lies.

The potentiality of Nature is represented by the laws


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 Rh presence of the king. For instance, if the king is sitting at table when you are admitted, you must stand at the proper distance and leave room for the waiters. You should hold your left wrist in your right hand, and be careful to listen to what the king says. If it happens that you don't catch his words exactly, you must not say 'Ha!' or 'What!' but 'Sir!' or, if you wish to put it more fully: 'Let it not be displeasing, Sir, if I ask what you spoke to me, for I understood not clearly'.

The difference between the Icelandic biography and the more abstract Norwegian works is, in a way, characteristic of the two countries, though we need not make too much of it.

Sturla's Life of Hacon will bear comparison with other historians of the time—with Matthew Paris, for example, who was a friend of King Hacon. It has been blamed as too courtly, but other witnesses (Matthew Paris among them) take a similar view of the king; Hacon's energy and success can be proved independently of the Icelandic historian. Naturally, the book is not as lively as the family memoirs of Sturla; he had not lived through it in the same way. But he had plenty of information from old Birkibein traditions, and he was a practised sifter of evidence. There is not the same room for comedy as in the Icelandic books, but there are 'humours and observations'—e. g. in the account of the coronation ceremony and the emotion of the Scottish knight, Mitchell, who was so overcome by the splendour that he sobbed aloud—or, again, in the notes of Cardinal William's journey in 1247, and his uncertainty whether there would be anything in Norway fit for a gentleman to drink. It is pleasant to compare this with Matthew Paris on the same subject. He had made a special study of Papal legates and their ways, and describes

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 of Nature; Nature remains true to its laws, and does not go beyond them; it is this which constitutes its substantiality, and just in consequence of this it is in the sphere of necessity. But in contrast to this, Man must be actually, for himself, what he potentially is, his potential being must come to be for him actual.

What is good by nature is good in an immediate way, and it is just the very nature of Spirit not to be something natural and immediate; rather, it is involved in the very idea of Man as Spirit that he should pass out of this natural state into a state in which there is a separation between his notion or conception and his immediate existence. In the case of physical Nature this separation of an individual thing from its law, from its substantial essence, does not occur, just because it is not free.

What is meant by Man is, a being who sets himself in opposition to his immediate nature, to his state of being in himself, and reaches a state of separation.

The other assertion made regarding Man springs directly from the statement that Man must not remain what he is immediately; he must pass beyond the state of immediacy; that is the notion or conception of Spirit. It is this passing beyond his natural state, his potential Being, which first of all forms the basis of the division or disunion, and in connection with which the disunion directly arises.

This disunion is a passing out of this natural condition or immediacy; but we must not take this to mean that it is the act of passing out of this condition which first constitutes evil, for, on the contrary, this passing out of immediacy is already involved in the state of nature. Potentiality and the natural state constitute the Immediate; but because it is Spirit it is in its immediacy the passing out of its immediacy, the revolt or falling away from its immediacy, from its potential Being.

This involves the second proposition: Man is by nature evil; his potential Being, his natural Being, is evil. It


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 is just in this his condition as one of natural Being that his defect is found; because he is Spirit he is separated from this natural Being, and is disunion. One-sidedness is directly involved in this natural condition. When Man is only as he is according to Nature, he is evil.

The natural man is Man as potentially good, good according to his conception or notion; but in the concrete sense that man is natural who follows his passions and impulses, and remains within the circle of his desires, and whose natural immediacy is his law.

He is natural, but in this his natural state he is at the same time a being possessed of will, and since the content of his will is merely impulse and inclination, he is evil. So far as form is concerned, the fact that he is will implies that he is no longer an animal, but the content, the ends towards which his acts of will are directed, are still natural. This is the standpoint we are concerned with here, the higher standpoint according to which Man is by nature evil, and is evil just because he is something natural.

The primary condition of Man, which is superficially represented as a state of innocence, is the state of nature, the animal state. Man must be culpable; in so far as he is good, he must not be good as any natural thing is good, but his guilt, his will, must come into play, it must be possible to impute moral acts to him. Guilt really means the possibility of imputation.

The good man is good along with and by means of his will, and to that extent because of his guilt. Innocence implies the absence of will, the absence of evil, and consequently the absence of goodness. Natural things and the animals are all good, but this is a kind of goodness which cannot be attributed to Man; in so far as he is good, it must be by the action and consent of his will.

What is absolutely required is that Man should not continue to be a natural being, to be natural will. Man, it is true, is possessed of consciousness, but he can still


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 be a natural being although he is Man, in so far as what is natural constitutes the end, the content, and the essential character of his acts of will.

It is necessary to view this characteristic in a stricter way. Man is Man as being a subject or person, and as a natural subject he is a definite single subject, and his will is a definite single will; particularity constitutes the content of his will, i.e., the natural man is selfish.

We demand of the man who is called good that he should at least regulate his conduct in accordance with general principles and laws. The naturalness of will is, strictly speaking, the selfishness of will as distinguished from the universality of will, and as contrasted with the rationality of the will which has been trained to guide itself by universality. This Evil personified in a general way is the Devil. This latter, as representing the Negative which wills itself, is because of this, self-identity, and must accordingly have the element of affirmation also in him, as he has in Milton, where his energy, which is full of character, makes him better than many an angel.

But the fact that Man in so far as he represents the natural will is evil, does not imply that we can no longer regard him from the other point of view, according to which he is potentially good. He always remains good, viewed in accordance with his notion or conception; but Man is consciousness, and is consequently essentially differentiation, and therefore a real, definite subject as distinguished from his notion; and since this subject is, to begin with, merely distinguished from its notion, and has not yet returned into the unity of its subjectivity with the notion, into the rational state, this reality which it has is natural reality, and that is selfishness.

The fact of evil directly presupposes a relation between reality and the Notion, and consequently we thus get simply the contradiction which is in potential Being, the contradiction of the Notion and particularity, of Good and


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 Evil. It is to put a false question to ask, Is Man good by nature, or is he not? That is a false position, and so, too, it is superficial to say, He is as much good as evil.

In reference particularly to the statement that the will is caprice or arbitrary will, and can will good or evil, it may be remarked that, as a matter of fact, this arbitrary will is not will. It is will only in so far as it comes to a resolution, for in so far as it wills this or that it is not will. The natural will is the will of the desires, of inclination which wills the immediate, and does not as yet will anything definite, for in order to do that it would have to be rational will and be able to perceive that law is rational. What is demanded of Man is that he should not be natural will, that he should not be as he is merely by nature. The conception of volition is something different from this; so long as Man continues to exist ideally as will, he is only potentially will, he is not yet actual will, he does not yet exist as Spirit. This is the truth in its universal aspect; the special aspect of it must here be left out of consideration. We can speak of what belongs to the definite sphere of morality only when we are dealing with some particular condition in which Man is placed; it has nothing to do with the nature of Spirit.

As opposed to the view that the will is evil, we have the fact that when we regard Man in a concrete way we speak of volition, and this concrete, this actual element cannot be simply something negative; the evil will, however, is thought of as purely negative volition, and this is a mere abstraction. If Man is not by nature what he should be, then he is implicitly rational, implicitly Spirit. This represents the affirmative element in him, and the fact that in the state of nature he is not what he ought to be, has reference accordingly only to the form of volition, the essential point being that Man is potentially Spirit. This potentiality persists when the natural will is being yielded up; it is the Notion, the persistent


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 element, the self-producing element. When, on the other hand, we speak of the will being evil by nature, we are thinking of the will in its negative aspect merely. We thus have in our minds at the same time this particular concrete element with which the abstraction referred to is in contradiction. We carry this so far that when we set up a Devil we have to show that there is something affirmative in him, strength of character, energy, consistency. When we come to the concrete we at once find that affirmative characteristics must show themselves present in it. In all this it is forgotten that when we speak of men they are thought of as men who have been educated and trained by customs, laws, &c. People say, Men are, after all, not so bad—just look round you; but then the men round about us are men who are already educated ethically and morally, men already reconstructed and brought into a certain state of reconciliation.

The main thing is, that in connection with religion we should not think of a moral condition, such as that of the child; on the contrary, in any description of the truth, what is essentially presented to us is the logical unfolding of the history of what Man is. It is the speculative way of regarding things which rules here; the abstract differences of the Notion are presented in successive order. If it is the trained and cultured man who has to be studied, then the change and reconstruction and discipline through which he has passed must necessarily appear in him as representing the transition from natural volition to true volition, and his immediate natural will must necessarily appear in this case as something which has been absorbed in what is higher.

(2.) If, therefore, the first characteristic means that Man in his immediate state is not what he is intended to be, then we have to remember that Man has also to reflect upon himself as he thus is; the fact of his being evil is thus brought into relation with reflection. This is readily taken to mean that it is only in accordance with this knowledge


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 he comes to be regarded as evil, so that this reflection is a sort of external demand or condition implying that if he were not to reflect upon himself in this way the other characteristic, namely, that he is evil, would drop away.

When this act of reflection is made a duty, then it may be so represented as to suggest that it only is what is essential, and that there can be no content without it. Further, the relation of reflection is stated also in such a way as to imply that it is reflection or knowledge which makes man evil, so that it is evil, and it is this knowledge which ought not to exist, and which is the source of evil. In this way of representing it, we have the connection which exists between the fact of being evil and knowledge. This is a point of essential importance.

In its more definite form this idea of evil implies that Man becomes evil through knowledge, or, as the Bible represents it, that he ate of the tree of knowledge. In this way, knowledge, intelligence, the theoretic element, and will enter into a more definite relation, and the nature of evil gets to be discussed in a more definite way. In this connection it may accordingly be remarked that as a matter of fact it is knowledge which is the source of all evil, for knowledge or consciousness is just the act by which separation, the negative element, judgment, division in the more definite specific form of independent existence or Being-for-self in general, comes into existence. Man’s nature is not as it ought to be; it is knowledge which reveals this to him, and brings to light that condition of Being in which he ought not to be. This obligation which lies on him is his Notion, and the fact that he is not what he should be originates first of all in the sense of separation or alienation, and from a comparison between what he is and what he is in his essential nature, in-and-for-himself. It is knowledge which first brings out the contrast or antithesis in which evil is found. The animal, the stone, the plant is not evil; evil is first present within the sphere of knowledge;


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 it is the consciousness of independent Being, or Being-for-self relatively to an Other, but also relatively to an Object which is inherently universal in the sense that it is the Notion, or rational will. It is only by means of this separation that I exist independently, for myself, and it is in this that evil lies. To be evil means in an abstract sense to isolate myself; the isolation which separates me from the Universal represents the element of rationality, the laws, the essential characteristics of Spirit. But it is along with this separation that Being-for-self originates, and it is only when it appears that we have the Spiritual as something universal, as Law, what ought to be.

It is therefore not the case that reflection stands in an external relation to evil, but, on the contrary, reflection itself is evil. This is the condition of contrast to which Man, because he is Spirit, must advance; he has, in fact, to be independent or for himself in such a way that he has as his object something which is his own object confronting him, which exists for him, the Good, the Universal, his essential or ideal character. Spirit is free, and freedom has within itself the essential element of the disunion referred to. It is in this disunion that independent Being or Being-for-self originates, and it is in it that evil has its seat; here is the source of the evil, but here also the point which is the ultimate source of reconciliation. It is at once what produces the disease, and the source of health. We cannot, however, better illustrate the character and mode of this movement of Spirit than by referring to the form it takes in the story of the Fall.

Sin is described by saying that Man ate of the tree of knowledge, &c. This implies the presence of knowledge, division, disunion in which good as existing for Man first shows itself, but, as a consequence, evil too. According to the story it is forbidden to eat of the tree, and thus evil is represented in a formal way as the


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 of a divine command, which might have had any kind of content. Here, however, it is just the knowledge referred to which essentially constitutes the command. It is upon this that the rise of consciousness depends, but it is at the same time to be thought of as a standpoint at which consciousness cannot rest, but which is to be absorbed in something higher, for consciousness must not remain at that point at which Being-for-self is in a state of disunion. The serpent further says that Man by the act of eating would become equal to God, and by speaking thus he made an appeal to Man’s pride. God says to Himself, Adam is become as one of us. The serpent had thus not lied, for God confirms what it said. A great deal of trouble has been taken with the explanation of this passage, and some have gone the length of explaining it as irony. The truer explanation, however, is that the Adam referred to is to be understood as representing the second Adam, namely, Christ. Knowledge is the principle of spiritual life, but it is also, as was remarked, the principle of the healing of the injury caused by disunion. It is in fact this principle of knowledge which supplies also the principle of man’s divineness, a principle which by a process of self-adjustment or elimination of difference must reach a condition of reconciliation or truth; or, in other words, it involves the promise and certainty of attaining once more the state in which Man is the image of God. We find such a prophecy expressed pictorially in what God says to the serpent, “I will put enmity, &c.” Since the serpent represents the principle of knowledge as something existing independently outside of Adam, it is clearly perfectly logical that Man, as representing concrete knowledge, should have in himself the other side of the truth, that of conversion and reflection, and that this other side should bruise the head of the serpent as representing the opposite side.

This is what the first man is represented as having


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 actually done, but here again we are using the language of sense; the first man, considered from the point of view of thought, signifies Man as Man, not any individual accidental single man out of many, but the first man absolutely, Man regarded in accordance with his conception or notion. Man as such is consciousness, and consequently he enters into this state of disunion—consciousness, namely, which when it gets a more specific character is knowledge.

In so far as the universal man is represented as the first man, he is distinguished from other men, and so the question arises: It is only this particular individual who has done the evil deed, how, then, has it affected others? Here accordingly we have the popular conception of inheritance, and by means of it the defect which attaches to the representation of Man as such, as an individual first man, is corrected.

Division or disunion is essentially implied in the conception of Man; the one-sided view involved in the representation of his act as the act of one individual is thus changed into a complete view by the introduction of the idea of communicated or inherited evil.

Work, &c., is declared to be the punishment of sin, and this from a general point of view is a necessary consequence.

The animal does not work, it works only when compelled, it does not work by nature, it does not eat its bread in the sweat of its brow, it does not produce its own bread; it directly finds in Nature satisfaction for all the needs it has. Man, too, finds the material for doing this; but the material, we may say, is for Man the least important part; the infinite means whereby he satisfies his needs come to him through work.

Work done in the sweat of his brow, both bodily work, and the work of the spirit, which is the harder of the two, is immediately connected with the knowledge of good and evil. That Man must make himself what


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 he is, that he must eat his bread in the sweat of his brow, that he must produce the nature which is his, belongs to what is essential to and most distinctive of Man, and is necessarily connected with the knowledge of good and evil.

The story further describes how the tree of life also stood in the garden; and the representation of this fact is of a simple and childlike character. The Good towards which men direct their wishes is of two kinds. Man wishes, on the one hand, to live in undisturbed happiness, in harmony with himself and outward Nature; the animal continues in this condition of unity, but Man has to pass beyond it; his other wish practically is to live eternally—and it is in accordance with these wishes that this pictorial conception has been constructed.

When we consider this representation of primitive man more closely, it is at once seen to be of a merely childlike sort. Man as an individual living thing, his individual life, his natural life, must die. But when we look more narrowly at the narrative, this is seen to be the wonderful part of it, the self-contradictory element in it.

In this contradiction Man is characterised as having an existence of his own, as being for himself. Being-for-self, in its character as consciousness, self-consciousness, is infinite self-consciousness, abstractly infinite. The fact that he is conscious of his freedom, of his absolutely abstract freedom, constitutes his infinite Being-for-self, which did not thus come into consciousness in the earlier religions in which the contrast or opposition did not get to this absolute stage, nor attain to this depth. Owing to the fact that this has happened here, the worth or dignity of Man is directly put on a much higher level. The subject has hereby attained absolute importance; it is essentially an object of interest to God, since it is self-consciousness which exists on its own account. It appears as the pure certainty of itself


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 within itself, there exists in it a centre or point of infinite subjectivity; it is certainly abstract, but it is abstract essential Being, Being in-and-for-self. This takes the form of the assertion that Man as Spirit is immortal, is an object of God’s interest, is raised above finitude and dependence, above external circumstances, that he has freedom to abstract himself from everything, and this implies that he can escape mortality. It is in religion that the immortality of the soul is the element of supreme importance, because the antithesis involved in religion is of an infinite kind.

What is mortal is what can die; what is immortal is what can reach a state in which death cannot enter. Combustible and incombustible are terms implying that combustion is a possibility merely, which attaches to the object in an external way. The essential character of Being is not, however, a possibility after this fashion, but, on the contrary, is an affirmative determinate quality which it already now possesses in itself.

Thus the immortality of the soul must not be represented as first entering the sphere of reality only at a later stage; it is the actual present quality of Spirit; Spirit is eternal, and for this reason is already present. Spirit, as possessed of freedom, does not belong to the sphere of things limited; it, as being what thinks and knows in an absolute way, has the Universal for its object; this is eternity, which is not simply duration, as duration can be predicated of mountains, but knowledge. The eternity of Spirit is here brought into consciousness, and is found in this reasoned knowledge, in this very separation, which has reached the infinitude of Being-for-self, and which is no longer entangled in what is natural, contingent, and external. This eternity of Spirit in itself means that Spirit is, to begin with, potential; but the next standpoint implies that Spirit ought not to continue to be merely natural Spirit, but that it ought to be what it is in its essential and complete nature, in-and-for-self.


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 22 with gusto the expensive fitting-out of the Cardinal's ship, with all its store-rooms and cabins, richly furnished, 'like another Ark of Noah'.

Sturla luckily came to Norway in time to collect the reminiscences of the veterans. He does not tell us what Froissart would have told about the people and the places where he got his information; by the rules of Icelandic history the author is not allowed to talk about himself except where he comes definitely into the action. But Sturla makes as good use as Froissart could have made of the memories of older men, and the Life of Hacon contains a number of good stories. The childhood and the youth of Hacon are well told, from the time when the Birkibeinar took the infant and carried him across Norway over the snow. They were very fond of him and remembered his wise sayings: as when once, in winter time, the butter was frozen so hard that it could not be spread; the bread, on the other hand, was elastic, so the little Hacon (four years old) folded it round the butter, saying, 'Let us bind the butter, Birkibeinar'. At which they laughed enormously and went about repeating it. It is not quite as good as some of the early wisdom of King James VI ('There is a hole in this Parliament'), but the history is all the better for this and other like things. The Icelandic author himself does not care too precisely for the dignity of history, and the oral tradition preserved some things that a mere Court-historian might have left out: a rude speech of King Hacon to his trumpeter was remembered. The trumpeter's blowing was feeble, and the King spoke to him like one of Marryat's boatswains, and said: 'Why can't you blow? You blew better when you were playing for money on the quay at Bergen'.

Again, the critical talent of the Icelanders did not

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 Spirit must reflect upon itself, and in this way disunion arises, it must not remain at the point at which it is seen not to be what it is potentially, but must become adequate to its conception or notion, it must become universal Spirit. Regarded from the standpoint of division or disunion, its potential Being is for it an Other, and it itself is natural will; it is divided within itself, and this division is so far its feeling or consciousness of a contradiction, and there is thus given along with it the necessity for the abolition of the contradiction.

On the one hand, it is said that Man in Paradise without sin would have been immortal—immortality on earth and the immortality of the soul are not separated in this statement—and would have lived for ever. If this outward death is to be regarded as merely a consequence of sin, then he would be implicitly immortal; on the other hand, we have it also stated in the story that it was not till Man should eat of the tree of life that he was to become immortal.

The matter, in fact, stands thus. Man is immortal in consequence of knowledge, for it is only as a thinking being that he is not a mortal animal soul, and is a free, pure soul. Reasoned knowledge, thought, is the root of his life, of his immortality as a totality in himself. The animal soul is sunk in the life of the body, while Spirit, on the other hand, is a totality in itself.

The next thing is, that this idea which we have reached in the region of thought should take an actual shape in Man, i.e., that Man should come to see the infinite nature of the opposition, of the opposition, that is, between good and evil, that he should know himself to be evil in so far as he is something natural, and thus become conscious of the antithesis, not merely in general, but as actually existing in himself, and see that it is he who is evil, and realise that the demand that the Good should be attained, and consequently the consciousness of disunion and the feeling of pain because


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 of the contradiction and opposition, have been awakened in him.

We have found the form of the opposition in all religions; but the opposition between Man and the power of Nature, between Man and the moral law, the moral will, morality, fate, is an opposition of a subordinate kind, involving opposition merely in reference to some particular thing.

The man who transgresses a commandment is evil, but he is evil only in this particular case, he is in a condition of opposition only in reference to this special commandment. We saw that in the Persian religion good and evil stood to each other in a relation of general opposition; there the opposition is outside of Man, who is himself outside of it. This abstract opposition is not present within himself.

It is accordingly required that Man should have this abstract opposition within himself and overcome it, not merely that he should not obey this or the other command, since the truth rather really is that he is implicitly evil, evil in his universal character, in his most inward nature, purely evil, evil in his inner being, and that this quality of evil represents the essential quality of his conception, and that he has to become conscious of this.

(3.) It is with this depth of Spirit that we are concerned. Depth means the abstraction of the opposition, the pure universalisation of the opposition, so that its two sides acquire this absolutely universal character in reference to each other.

This opposition has, speaking generally, two forms: on the one hand, it is the opposition of evil as such, implying that it is the opposition itself which is evil—this is the opposition viewed in reference to God; on the other hand, it is opposition as against the world, implying that it is out of harmony with the world—this is misery, the condition of division or disunion viewed from the other side.


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 In order that the need of universal reconciliation, and as a part of this divine reconciliation, absolute reconciliation in Man, should arise, it is necessary that the opposition should get this infinite character, and that it should be seen that this universality comprises Man’s most inward nature, that there is nothing which is outside of this opposition, that the opposition is not of a particular kind. This is the deepest depth.

(a.) We have first to consider the relation in which the disunion stands to one of the extremes, namely, to God. Man is inwardly conscious that in the depths of his being he is a contradiction, and thus there arises an infinite feeling of sorrow in reference to himself. Sorrow is present only where there is opposition to what ought to be, to an affirmative. What is no longer in itself an affirmative has no contradiction, no sorrow in it either; sorrow is just negativity in the Affirmative, it means that the Affirmative is something self-contradictory, that it is wounded by its own act.

This sorrow is the one element of evil. Evil existing simply by itself is an abstraction, it exists only in opposition to good; and since it is present in the unity of the subject, the feeling of opposition in reference to this disunion constitutes infinite sorrow. If the consciousness of good did not thus exist in the subject itself, and if the infinite demand made by good was not present in the inmost being of the subject, then there would be no sorrow there, evil itself would be an empty nothing; it is present only in this antithesis or opposition.

Both evil and this sorrow can be infinite only when good, God, is known as one God, as a pure spiritual God, and it is only when good is this pure unity, when we have belief in one God, and only in connection with such a belief, that the negative can and must advance to this determination of evil, and that the negation also can advance to this condition of universality.


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 The one side of this disunion thus becomes apparent by the elevation of Man to the pure spiritual unity of God. This sorrow and this consciousness represent Man’s descent into himself, and consequently into the negative moment of disunion or evil.

This is the negative, or inward, descent or absorption into evil; inward absorption of an affirmative kind is absorption into the pure unity of God. When this stage is reached, it is seen that I as a natural man do not correspond to what represents the truth, and that I am entangled in the multiplicity of natural particular things, and just as the truth of the one Good is present in me with an infinite certainty, so this want of correspondence gets a determinate character as something which ought not to be.

The problem, the demand, is of an infinite kind. It may be said that since I am a natural man I have from one point of view a consciousness of myself; but to be in a state of nature means that I am without consciousness in reference to myself, means the absence of will; I am a being of the kind which acts in accordance with Nature, and so far regarded from this side I am, as is often said, innocent, I have, so far, no consciousness of what I do, I am without any will of my own, what I do I do without definite inclination, and allow myself to be surprised into doing it by impulse.

Here, however, in this state of opposition this innocence disappears. For it is just this natural, unconscious, and will-less Being of Man which ought not to be, and it is consequently determined to evil in presence of the pure unity, the perfect purity which I know as representing the True and the Absolute. In putting it thus we imply that when this point has been reached it is essentially this very unconsciousness and absence of will which is to be considered as evil.

The contradiction, however, still remains, turn it how you will. Since this so-called innocence characterises


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 itself as evil, the want of correspondence between myself and the Absolute, my inadequacy to express my essence, remain, and thus, from whichever side I regard myself, I always know myself to be something which ought not to be.

This expresses the relation in reference to the one extreme, and the result, this sorrow in a more definite form, is my humility, the feeling of contrition, the fact that I experience sorrow because I as a natural being do not correspond to what I at the same time know myself to be in my knowledge and will.

(b.) As regards the relation to the other extreme, the separation appears in this case in the form of misery arising from the fact that Man does not find satisfaction in the world. His desire for satisfaction, his natural wants have no longer any rights, any claims to be satisfied. As a natural being, Man stands related to an Other, and that Other is related to him in the form of forces, and his existence is to this extent contingent, just as that of other things is.

The demands of his nature, however, in reference to morality, the higher moral claims of his nature, are demands and determinations of freedom. In so far as these demands, which are implicitly legitimate, and are grounded in his notion or conception—for he knows about the Good, and the Good is in him—do not find their satisfaction in the existing order of things, in the external world, he is in a state of misery.

It is misery which drives Man into himself, forces him back into himself, and because this fixed demand that the world should be rational exists in him, he gives up the world, and seeks happiness, satisfaction, in himself, as the harmony of the affirmative side of his nature with himself. Because he seeks after this, he gives up the external world, transfers his happiness into himself, and finds satisfaction in himself.

We had this demand and this unhappiness in the


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 two following forms. We saw how the sorrow which comes from universality, from above, was found amongst the Jewish people; in connection with it there is ever present the infinite demand for absolute purity in my natural existence, in my empirical willing and knowing. The other form they took, the retreat from misery into self, represents the standpoint at which the Roman world arrived and where it ended, namely, the universal misery of the world.

We saw how this formal inwardness which finds satisfaction in the world, this dominion as being the aim or end of God, was represented, and known, and thought of as worldly dominion. Both of these aspects of the truth are one-sided; the first may be defined as the feeling of humiliation, the other is the abstract elevation of Man in himself, of Man as self-centred. Thus it is Stoicism or Scepticism.

According to the Stoical or Sceptical view, Man is driven back upon himself, he has to find satisfaction in himself, in this state of independence; in remaining inflexibly self-centred he has to find happiness, inner harmony of soul, he is to rest in this abstract, present, self-conscious inwardness of his.

It is in this separation or disunion, as we have said, that the subject thus takes on a definite character, and conceives of itself as the extreme of abstract Being-for-self, of abstract freedom; the soul plunges into its depths, into its absolute abyss. This soul is the undeveloped monad, the naked monad, the empty soul devoid of content; but since it is potentially the Notion, the concrete, this emptiness or abstraction stands in a relation of contradiction to its essential character, which is, to be concrete.

Thus the universal element is represented by the fact that in this separation which develops into an infinite antithesis, the abstraction is to be done away with and absorbed. This abstract “I” is also in itself, a will, it is


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 concrete, but the immediate element which is present in it and gives it substance is the natural will. The soul finds nothing in itself except desires, selfishness, &c.; and this is one of the forms of the opposition, that “I,” as representing the soul in the depth of its nature, and the real side, are distinct from one another, and in such a way that the real side is not something which has been made adequate to express the Notion and is accordingly carried back to it, but, on the contrary, finds in itself only the natural will.

The sphere of opposition in which the real side is further developed, is the world, and thus the unity of the Notion has opposed to it the natural will as a whole, the principle of which is selfishness, and the realisation of which appears in the form of depravity, cruelty, &c. The objectivity which this pure “I” has, and which exists for it as something adequate to express it, is not found in the natural will, nor in the world either; on the contrary, the objectivity which adequately corresponds to it is the universal Essence only, that One which does not find its realisation or fulness in it, and which has all that supplies realisation, or the world, confronting it.

Accordingly the consciousness of this opposition, of this division between the “I” and the natural will, is that of an infinite contradiction. This “I” exists in an immediate relation to the natural will and to the world, and at the same time it is repelled by them. This is infinite sorrow, the world’s Passion. The reconciliation which we have hitherto found to be connected with this standpoint is only partial, and for that reason unsatisfactory. The harmony of the “I” within itself, which it attains in the Stoic philosophy, is of a merely abstract kind; it here knows itself as what thinks, and its object is what is thought, the Universal, and this is for it simply everything, the true essentiality, and thus this has for it the value of something thought, and has value for the subject as being what it itself has posited. This


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 is merely abstract, for all determination lies outside of what is thus thought, and we have merely formal self-identity. Such an abstract kind of reconciliation cannot find, and ought not to find, a place in connection with this absolute standpoint, nor can the natural will find satisfaction within itself either, for neither it nor the world as it is can satisfy him who has become conscious of his infinity. The abstract depth of the opposition demands an infinite suffering on the part of the soul, and consequently a reconciliation which will be correspondingly complete.

These are the highest, most abstract moments, and the opposition or antithesis is the highest of all. The two sides represent the opposition in its most complete universality, in what is most inward, in the Universal itself, the two sides of the antithesis in the case in which the opposition goes deepest. Both sides are, however, one-sided; the first side contains the sorrow, the abstract humiliation referred to; what is highest here is simply this inadequacy of the subject to express the Universal, this division or disruption, which is not healed nor adjusted, representing the opposition between an infinite on the one side, and a fixed finitude on the other side. This finitude is abstract finitude; anything in this connection reckoned as belonging to me is, according to this way of looking at it, simply evil.

This abstraction finds its completion in the Other; this is thought in itself, it implies that I am adequate to myself, that I find satisfaction in myself and can be satisfied in myself. This second side is, however, actually just as one-sided, for it is merely the Affirmative, my self-affirmation in myself. The first side, the brokenness of heart, is merely negative, without affirmation in itself; the second is meant to represent this affirmation, this satisfaction of self within self. This satisfaction of myself in myself, however, is a merely abstract satisfaction reached by fleeing from the world, from reality, by


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. Since this is a fleeing from reality, it is also a fleeing from my reality, not a fleeing from external reality, but from the reality of my own volition.

The reality of my volition, I as a definite subject, the will in a realised form, are no longer mine; but what is left to me is the immediacy of my self-consciousness, the individual self-consciousness. This is certainly completely abstract, still this final point of the spirit’s depth is contained in it, and I have preserved myself in it.

This abstraction from my abstract reality is not in me or in my immediate self-consciousness, in the immediacy of my self-consciousness. On this side, therefore, it is affirmation which is the predominant factor, affirmation without the negation of the one-sidedness of immediate Being. In the other case it is the negation which is one-sided.

These are the two moments which contain the necessity for transition. The conception or notion of the preceding religions has purified itself and thus reached this antithesis, and the fact that this antithesis or opposition has shown itself to be, and has taken the form of, an actually existing necessity, is expressed by the words, “When the time was fulfilled,” i.e., Spirit, the demand of Spirit, is actually present, Spirit which points the way to reconciliation.

(c.) Reconciliation.—The deepest need of Spirit consists in the fact that the opposition in the subject itself has attained its universal, i.e., its most abstract extreme. This is the division, the sorrow referred to. That these two sides are not mutually exclusive, but constitute this contradiction in one, is what directly proves the subject to be an infinite force of unity; it can bear this contradiction. This is the formal, abstract, but also infinite energy of the unity which it possesses.

What satisfies this need, we call the consciousness of reconcilement, the consciousness of the abolition, of the nullity of the opposition, the consciousness that this


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 opposition is not the truth, but that, on the contrary, the truth consists in reaching unity by the negation of this opposition, i.e., the peace, the reconciliation which this need demands. Reconciliation is the demand of the subject’s sense of need, and is inherent in it as being what is infinitely one, what is self-identical.

This abolition of the opposition has two sides. The subject must come to be conscious that this opposition is not something implicit or essential, but that the truth, the inner nature of Spirit, implies the abolition and absorption of this opposition. Accordingly, just because it is implicitly, and, from the point of view of truth, done away with in something higher, the subject as such in its Being-for-self can reach and arrive at the abolition of this opposition, that is to say, can attain to peace or reconciliation.

1. The very fact that the opposition is implicitly done away with constitutes the condition, the presupposition, the possibility of the subject’s ability to do away with it actually. In this respect it may be said that the subject does not attain reconciliation on its own account, that is, as a particular subject, and in virtue of its own activity, and what it itself does; reconciliation is not brought about, nor can it be brought about, by the subject in its character as subject.

This is the nature of the need when the question is, By what means can it be satisfied? Reconciliation can be brought about only when the annulling of the division has been arrived at; when what seems to shun reconciliation, this opposition, namely, is non-existent; when the divine truth is seen to be for this, the resolved or cancelled contradiction, in which the two opposites lay aside their mutually abstract relation.

Here again, accordingly, the question above referred to once more arises. Can the subject not bring about this reconciliation by itself by means of its own action, by bringing its inner life to correspond with the divine Idea


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 through its own piety and devoutness, and by giving expression to this in actions? And, further, can the individual subject not do this, or, at least, may not all men do it who rightly will to adopt the divine Law as theirs, so that heaven might exist on earth, and the Spirit in its graciousness actually live here and have a real existence? The question is as to whether the subject can or cannot effect this in virtue of its own powers as subject. The ordinary idea is that it can do this. What we have to notice here, and what must be carefully kept in mind, is that we are dealing with the subject thought of as standing at one of the two extremes, as existing for itself. To subjectivity belongs, as a characteristic feature, the power of positing, and this means that some particular thing exists owing to me. This positing or making actual, this doing of actions, &c., takes place through me, it matters not what the content is; the act of producing is consequently a one-sided characteristic, and the product is merely something posited, or dependent for its existence on something else; it remains as such merely in a condition of abstract freedom. The question referred to consequently comes to be a question as to whether it can by its act of positing produce this. This positing must essentially be a pre-positing, a presupposition, so that what is posited is also something implicit. The unity of subjectivity and objectivity, this divine unity, must be a presupposition so far as my act of positing is concerned, and it is only then that it has a content, a substantial element in it, and the content is Spirit, otherwise it is subjective and formal; it is only then that it gets a true, substantial content. When this presupposition thus gets a definite character it loses its one-sidedness, and when a definite signification is given to a presupposition of this kind the one-sidedness is in this way removed and lost. Kant and Fichte tell us that man can sow, can do good only on the presupposition that there is a moral order in the world; he does not know whether what he does will


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 prosper and succeed; he can only act on the presupposition that the Good by its very nature involves growth and success, that it is not merely something posited, but, on the contrary, is in its own nature objective. Presupposition involves essential determination.

The harmony of this contradiction must accordingly be represented as something which is a presupposition for the subject. The Notion, in getting to know the divine unity, knows that God essentially exists in-and-for-Himself, and consequently what the subject thinks, and its activity, have no meaning in themselves, but are and exist only in virtue of that presupposition. The truth must therefore appear to the subject as a presupposition, and the question is as to how and in what form the truth can appear in connection with the standpoint we now occupy; it is infinite sorrow, the pure depth of the soul, and it is for this sorrow that the cancelling or solution of the contradiction has to exist. This cancelling has, to begin with, necessarily the form of a presupposition, because what we have here is a one-sided extreme.

What belongs to the subject, therefore, is simply this act of positing, action as representing merely one side; the other side is the substantial and fundamental one, which contains in it the possibility of reconciliation. This means that this opposition does not really exist implicitly. To put it more correctly, it means that the opposition springs up eternally, and at the same time eternally abolishes itself, is at the same time eternal reconciliation.

That this is the truth, we saw when dealing with the eternal divine Idea, which implies that God as living Spirit distinguishes Himself from Himself, posits an Other, and in this Other remains identical with Himself, and has in this other His self-identity with Himself.

This is the truth; it is this truth which must constitute the one side of what Man has to become conscious of, the potentially existing, substantial side.


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 We may express it in a more definite form by saying that the opposition is inadequacy in general. The opposition, Evil, represents the natural aspect of human existence and volition, or immediacy. This is just the mode of existence characteristic of the natural life; it is just when we have immediacy that we have finitude, and this finitude or natural life is inadequate to express the universality of God, of the absolutely free, self-existent, infinite, eternal Idea.

This inadequacy is the starting-point which constitutes the need of reconciliation. The stricter definition of it would not consist in saying that the inadequacy attaching to both sides disappears for consciousness. The inadequacy exists; it is involved in what is spiritual. Spirit means self-differentiation, the positing or making explicit of differences.

If these are different, then, by the very fact that according to this moment they are differences, they are not alike; they are distinguished from each other, they do not correspond to each other. The inadequacy or want of correspondence cannot disappear; if it were to disappear then Spirit’s power of judgment or differentiation, its life, would disappear, in which case it would cease to be Spirit.

2. A further determination is reached when we say that, spite of this want of correspondence, the identity of the two exists; that otherness or Other-Being, finitude, weakness, the frailty of human nature, cannot in any way impair the value of that unity which forms the substantial element in reconciliation.

This, too, we recognised as present in the divine Idea; for the Son is other than the Father, and this Other-Being is difference, for if it were not, it would not be Spirit. But the Other is God, and has the entire fulness of the Divine nature in Himself. The characteristic of Other-Being in no way detracts from the value of the fact that this Other is the Son of God, and is


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 God; and so, too, it does not detract from the divine character of the Other as it appears in human nature.

This otherness or Other-Being is Being which eternally annuls itself, which eternally posits itself and eternally annuls itself, and this self-positing and annulling of Other-Being is love or Spirit. Evil, as representing one side of Being, has been defined simply as the Other, the finite, the negative, and God has been placed on the other side as the Good, the True. But this Other, this negative, contains within itself affirmation as well, and in finite Being it must come to be consciously known that the principle of affirmation is contained in this Other, and that there lies in this principle of affirmation the principle of identity with the other side, just as God is not only the True, abstract self-identity, but has in the Other, in negation, in the self-positing of the Other, His peculiarly essential characteristic, which is indeed the peculiar characteristic of Spirit.

The possibility of reconciliation rests only on the conscious recognition of the implicit unity of divine and human nature; this is the necessary basis. Thus Man can know that he has been received into union with God in so far as God is not for him something foreign to his nature, in so far as he does not stand related to God as an external accident, but when he has been taken up into God in his essential character, in a way which is in accordance with his freedom and subjectivity; this, however, is possible only in so far as this subjectivity which belongs to human nature exists in God Himself.

Infinite sorrow must come to be conscious of this implicit Being as the implicit unity of divine and human nature, but only in its character as implicit Being or substantiality, and in such a way that this finitude, this weakness, this Other-Being, in no way impairs the substantial unity of the two.

The unity of divine and human nature, Man in his


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 universality, is the Thought of Man, and the Idea of absolute Spirit in-and-for-itself. In the process also in which Other-Being annuls itself, this Idea and the objectivity of God are implicitly real, and they are in fact immediately present in all men; out of the cup of the entire spirit-realm there foams for him infinitude. The sorrow which the finite experiences in being thus annulled and absorbed, does not give pain, since it is by this means raised to the rank of a moment in the process of the Divine.

“Why should that trouble trouble us, since it makes our pleasure more?”

Here, however, at the standpoint at which we now are, it is not with the Thought of Man that we have got to do. Nor can we stop short at the characteristic of individuality in general, which is itself again universal, and is present in abstract thinking as such.

3. On the contrary, if Man is to get a consciousness of the unity of divine and human nature, and of this characteristic of Man as belonging to Man in general; or if this knowledge is to force its way wholly into the consciousness of his finitude as the beam of eternal light which reveals itself to him in the finite, then it must reach him in his character as Man in general, i.e., apart from any particular conditions of culture or training; it must come to him as representing Man in his immediate state, and it must be universal for immediate consciousness.

The consciousness of the absolute Idea, which we have in thought, must therefore not be put forward as belonging to the standpoint of philosophical speculation, of speculative thought, but must, on the contrary, appear in the form of certainty for men in general. This does not mean that they think this consciousness, or perceive and recognise the necessity of this Idea; but what we are concerned to show is rather that the Idea becomes for


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 them certain, i.e., this Idea, namely, the unity of divine and human nature, attains the stage of certainty, that, so far as they are concerned, it receives the form of immediate sense-perception, of outward existence—in short, that this Idea appears as seen and experienced in the world. This unity must accordingly show itself to consciousness in a purely temporal, absolutely ordinary manifestation of reality, in one particular man, in a definite individual who is at the same time known to be the Divine Idea, not merely a Being of a higher kind in general, but rather the highest, the absolute Idea, the Son of God.

The expression, “the divine and human natures in One,” is a harsh and awkward one; but we must forget the pictorial idea associated with it. What we have got to think of in connection with it is the spiritual substantiality which it suggests; in the unity of the divine and human natures everything belonging to outward particularisation has disappeared; the finite, in fact, has disappeared.

It is the substantial element in the unity of the divine and human natures of which Man attains the consciousness, and in such a way that to him Man appears as God and God as Man. This substantial unity is Man’s potential nature; but while this implicit nature exists for Man, it is above and beyond immediate consciousness, ordinary consciousness and knowledge; consequently it must be regarded as existing in a region above that subjective consciousness which takes the form of ordinary consciousness and is characterised as such.

This explains why this unity must appear for others in the form of an individual man marked off from or excluding the rest of men, not as representing all individual men, but as One from whom they are shut off, though he no longer appears as representing the potentiality or true essence which is above, but as individuality in the region of certainty.


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 It is with this certainty and sensuous view that we are concerned, and not merely with a divine teacher, nor indeed simply with morality, nor even in any way simply with a teacher of this Idea either. It is not with ordinary thought or with conviction that we have got to do, but with this immediate presence and certainty of the Divine; for the immediate certainty of what is present represents the infinite form and mode which the “Is” takes for the natural consciousness. This Is destroys all trace of mediation; it is the final point, the last touch of light which is laid on. This Is is wanting in mediation of any kind such as is given through feeling, pictorial ideas, reasons; and it is only in philosophical knowledge, by means of the Notion only in the element of universality, that it returns again.

The Divine is not to be conceived of merely as a universal thought, or as something inward and having potential existence only; the objectifying of the Divine is not to be conceived of simply as the objective form it takes in all men, for in that case it would be conceived of simply as representing the manifold forms of the Spiritual in general, and the development which the Absolute Spirit has in itself and which has to advance till it reaches the form of what is the form of immediacy, would not be contained in it.

The One we find in the Jewish religion exists in thought, not in the form of sense-perception, and consequently has not reached the perfect form of Spirit. It is just this attaining of a complete and perfect form in Spirit which we call subjectivity, which endlessly alienates or estranges itself, and then from this absolute opposition, from the furthest point of manifestation, returns to itself.

The principle of individuality, it is true, was already present in the Greek ideal, but there it was wanting just in that universal essentially existing infinitude; the


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 Rh prevent them from putting miraculous things into their histories; the Sturlung memoirs are full of dreams and portents, including a dream of Sturla himself, about a mighty stone shoot, a rushing 'scree', in the valley of Hvamm, just before the great defeat of the Sturlungs. There are some stories of that sort also in the Life of Hacon—best of all, the vision that appeared to King Alexander of Scotland as he lay at anchor in the Sound of Kerrera, when St. Olaf, St. Magnus, and St. Columba appeared and warned him. This, again, is told in the Icelandic way; the three men are described first, before their names are given, and their names are given as conjectures. A thick-set figure wearing the dress of a king—who could this be but St. Olaf? The third figure, who was much the tallest of the three, is described as 'bald on the forehead' (mjök framsnoðinn), which must mean the Irish tonsure of St. Columba—the frontal tonsure—a curiously accurate piece of detail. The Icelandic method is like that of a novelist: their best books are the history of families and neighbourhoods, 'annals of the parish'. The interests are those of private life. Hence Sturla had to change his manner somewhat in dealing with the larger political affairs of Norway. There is a different scale and other motives. Sturla does something to bring out his conception of the kingly office; as in the chapter which he gives to a well-filled day of King Hacon's life, in the Christmas time of his most anxious year, when the king had to attend the funeral of one of his lords, and also to look after the launch of a warship, besides hearing cases and holding a court. No time was lost; the mast of the warship was stepped while the funeral service was being sung; 'the king was busy that day'.

And further, while he thus exhibits the practical genius

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 as Universal is posited only in the subjectivity of consciousness; it is this subjectivity only which is infinite inner movement, in which all the determinateness of definite existence is cancelled, and which at the same time is present in existence in its most finite form.

This individual, accordingly, who represents for others the manifestation of the Idea, is a particular Only One, not some ones, for the Divine in some would become an abstraction. The idea of some is a miserable superfluity of reflection, a superfluity because opposed to the conception or notion of individual subjectivity. In the Notion once is always, and the subject must turn exclusively to one subjectivity. In the eternal Idea there is only one Son, and thus there is only One in whom the absolute Idea appears, and this One excludes the others. It is this perfect development of reality thus embodied in immediate individuality or separateness which is the finest feature of the Christian religion, and the absolute transfiguration of the finite gets in it a form in which it can be outwardly perceived.

This characteristic, namely, that God becomes Man, and consequently that the finite spirit has the consciousness of God in the finite itself, represents what is the most difficult moment of religion. According to a common idea, which we find amongst the ancients particularly, the spirit or soul has been forced into this world as into an element which is foreign to it; this indwelling of the soul in the body, and this particularisation in the form of individuality, are held to be a degradation of Spirit. In this is involved the idea of the untruth of the purely material side, of immediate existence. On the other hand, however, the characteristic of immediate existence is at the same time an essential characteristic, it is the final tapering point of Spirit in its subjectivity. Man has spiritual interests and is spiritually active; he can feel that he is hindered in


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 connection with these interests and activities; in so far as he feels himself to be in a condition of physical dependence, and has to provide for his own support, &c., his thoughts are taken away from his spiritual interests through his being bound to Nature. The stage of immediate existence is, however, contained in Spirit itself. The essential characteristic of Spirit is that it should advance to this stage. The natural life is not simply an external necessity; on the contrary, Spirit, as subject in its infinite reference to itself, has the characteristic of immediacy in it. In so far, accordingly, as the nature of Spirit happens to be revealed to Man, the nature of God in the entire development of the Idea must be revealed, and thus this form must also be present here, and that is just the form of finitude. The Divine must appear in the form of immediacy. This immediate presence is merely a presence of the Spiritual in that spiritual form which is the human form. This manifestation is not true when it takes any other form, certainly not when it is a manifestation of God in the burning bush, and the like. God appears as an individual person to whose immediacy all kinds of physical necessities are attached. In Indian pantheism a countless number of incarnations occur; there subjectivity, human existence, is only an accidental form; in God it is simply a mask which Substance adopts and changes in an accidental way. God as Spirit, however, contains in Himself the moment of subjectivity, of singleness; His manifestation, accordingly, can only be a single one, can take place only once.

In the Church Christ has been called the God-Man. This is the extraordinary combination which directly contradicts the Understanding; but the unity of the divine and human natures has here been brought into human consciousness and has become a certainty for it, implying that the otherness, or, as it is also expressed, the finitude, the weakness, the frailty of human nature is not


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 incompatible with this unity, just as in the eternal Idea otherness in no way detracts from the unity which God is.

This is the extraordinary combination the necessity of which we have seen. It involves the truth that the divine and human natures are not implicitly different. God in human form. The truth is that there is only one reason, one Spirit, that Spirit as finite has no true existence.

The substantiality of the form of manifestation is unfolded or made explicit. Because it is the manifestation of God, it is essentially for the community of believers. Manifestation means Being for an Other, and this other is the community of believers.

This historical manifestation may, however, be looked at in two different ways. On the one hand, it may be held to be Man as he is in his outward condition in the sense of ordinary Man, the sense in which Man is taken in the irreligious way of regarding this manifestation. Then, on the other hand, it may be looked at in spirit or in a spiritual way, and with the spirit, which presses on to reach its truth, and which, just because it has this infinite division, this sorrow within itself, wills the truth, wills to have, and must have, the need of truth and the certainty of truth. This is the true way of regarding the manifestation so far as religion is concerned. We must distinguish between these two standpoints—the immediate way of looking at the question, and the way followed by faith.

By faith this individual is known to possess divine nature, whereby God ceases to be a Being beyond this world. When Christ is looked at in the same way as Socrates is, He is looked at as an ordinary man, just as the Mohammedans consider Christ as God’s ambassador in the general sense in which all great men are God’s ambassadors or messengers. If we say nothing more of Christ than that He was a teacher of humanity, a martyr


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 for the truth, we do not occupy the Christian standpoint, the standpoint of the true religion.

The one side is this human side, this appearance of one who was a living man. As an immediate or natural man he is subject to the contingency which belongs to outward things, to all temporal relations and conditions; he is born, as Man he has the needs which all other men have except that he does not share in the corruption, the passions, the particular inclinations of men, in the special interests of the worldly life in connection with which uprightness and moral teaching may also find a place; on the contrary, he lives only for the truth and the proclamation of the truth, his activity consists simply in fulfilling the higher consciousness of men.

It is to this human side, therefore, that the doctrine of Christ chiefly belongs. The question is, How can such doctrine exist, and in what way is it formed? The doctrine in its first form cannot have been composed of the same elements as afterwards appeared in the doctrine of the Church. It must have certain peculiarities which in the Church of necessity partly receive another signification and are partly dropped. Christ’s teaching in its immediate form cannot be Christian Dogmatics, cannot be Church-doctrine. When the Christian community has been set up, when the Kingdom of God has attained reality and a definite existence, this teaching can no longer have the same signification as before.

The principal contents of this teaching can only be general and abstract. If something new, a new world, a new religion, a new conception of God, is to be given to the world of ordinary thought, then the first thing needed is the general sphere of ideas in which this can show itself, and the second thing is the particular, the determinate, the concrete. The world of ordinary thought, in so far as it thinks, thinks merely abstractly, it thinks only what is general; it is reserved for Spirit, which comprehends things through the Notion, to recognise


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 the particular in the general, and to see how this particular proceeds out of the Notion by its own power. For the world of ordinary or popular thought, the basis on which universal Thought rests, and particularisation, development, are separated. This general or universal basis may therefore be made use of for the true notion of God, by means of doctrine.

Since what we have got to do with is a new consciousness on the part of men, a new religion, it is for that reason the consciousness of absolute reconciliation; this involves a new world, a new religion, a new reality, a world in a different condition, for it is religion which is the substantial element in external determinate Being or existence.

This is the negative or polemical side, as against continuance in this externality on the part of the consciousness or faith of Man. The new religion declares itself to be a new consciousness, a consciousness of the reconciliation of Man with God; this reconciliation as expressing a condition is the Kingdom of God, the Eternal as the home of Spirit, a real world in which God reigns; the spirits, the hearts here are reconciled with Him, and thus it is God who has attained to authority over them. This so far represents the general sphere or basis.

This Kingdom of God, the new religion, thus contains within itself the characteristic of negation in reference to all that is actual. This is the revolutionary side of its teaching which partly throws aside all that actually exists, and partly destroys and overthrows it. All earthly and worldly things drop away as being without value, and are expressly declared to be valueless. What has hitherto existed is altered, the hitherto existing relations, the condition of religion and of the world, cannot remain as they have hitherto been. What, therefore, has to be done is to get Man—who must reach a consciousness of reconciliation—drawn out of his present condition,


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 and to get him to seek after this abstraction or withdrawal from actual reality.

This new religion as yet concentrates itself, and does not actually exist as a church or community of believers, but shows itself rather in that energy which constitutes the sole interest of the man who has to fight and struggle in order to obtain this new condition, because it is not yet in harmony with the actual state of the world, and is not yet brought into connection with his world-consciousness.

This new religion, therefore, on its first appearance presents a polemical aspect, involves a demand that finite things should be abandoned; it demands that Man should rise to the exercise of an infinite energy in which the Universal demands that it should be laid hold of for its own sake, and in which all other ties have to be treated as matters of indifference, and all that had hitherto been regarded as moral and right, all other ties, have to be put aside.

“Who is my mother and my brother?” &c. “Let the dead bury their dead,” &c. “Whoever puts his hand to the plough and looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.” “I am come to bring a sword,” &c. In these words we see how a polemic is directed against all ordinary moral relations—“Take no thought for the morrow,” “Give your goods to the poor.”

All those relations which have reference to property, disappear; meanwhile they in turn cancel themselves, for if everything is given to the poor then there are no poor. All this represents doctrines and special characteristics which belong to the first appearance of the new religion when it constitutes man’s sole interest, which he must believe he is as yet in danger of losing, and when its teaching is addressed to men with whom the world is done and who are done with the world. The one side is represented by this renunciation; this giving up, this slighting of every substantial interest and of moral ties, is an essential characteristic of the concentrated manifestation of truth, a characteristic which


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, when truth has attained a sure existence, loses some of its importance. In fact, if this religion at its start as suffering, appears in relation to what is outside of it as willing to endure, to yield, to submit to death, in course of time, when it has grown strong, its inner energy will act towards what is outside of it with a correspondingly violent display of force.

The next thing in the affirmative part of this religion is the proclamation of the Kingdom of God; into this Kingdom, as representing the Kingdom of love to God, Man has to transport himself, and he does this by directly devoting himself to the truth it embodies. This is expressed with the most absolute and startling frankness, as, for instance, at the beginning of the so-called Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Words like these are amongst the grandest that have ever been uttered. They represent a final central point in which all superstition and all want of freedom on Man’s part are done away with. It is of infinite importance that, by Luther’s translation of the Bible, a popular book has been put into the hands of the people, in which the heart, the spirit can find itself at home in the very highest, in fact in an infinite way; in Catholic countries there is in this respect a grave want. For Protestant peoples the Bible supplies a means of deliverance from all spiritual slavery.

There is no mention of any mediation in connection with this elevating of the spirit whereby it may become an accomplished fact in Man; but, on the contrary, the mere statement of what is required implies this immediate Being, this immediate self-transference into Truth, into the Kingdom of God. It is to the intellectual and spiritual world, to the Kingdom of God, that Man ought to belong, and in it it is feeling or moral disposition alone which has value, but not abstract feeling, not mere chance opinion, but that absolute feeling or disposition which has its basis in the Kingdom of God. It is in


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 connection with this Kingdom of God that the infinite worth of inwardness first comes into view. This is proclaimed in the language of enthusiasm, in tones so penetrating as to thrill the soul, and, as Hermes the psychagogue did, to draw it out of the body and bear it away beyond the temporal into its eternal home. “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.”

Along with this elevation above, and complete abstraction from all that the world counts great, we everywhere find in Christ’s teaching a lament over the degradation of His nation, and of men in general. Jesus appeared at a time when the Jewish nation, owing to the dangers to which its worship had been exposed and was still exposed, was more obstinately absorbed in its observance than ever, and was at the same time compelled to despair of seeing its hopes actually realised since it had come in contact with a universal humanity, the existence of which it could no longer deny, and which nevertheless was completely devoid of any spiritual element—He appeared, in short, when the common people were in perplexity and helpless.

“I thank Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.”

Accordingly, this substantial element, this universal divine heaven of the inner life, leads, under the influence of reflection of a more definite kind, to moral commands which are the application of that universal element to particular circumstances and situations. These commands, however, themselves partly apply only to limited spheres of action, and are partly intended for those stages in which we are occupied with absolute truth; they contain nothing striking, or else they are already contained in other religions and in the Jewish religion. These commands are comprised in the command of Love as their central point, love which has for its aim, not the rights, but the well-being of the other, and thus expresses a relation to its particular object. “Love thy neighbour


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 as thyself.” This command, thought of in the abstract and more extended sense as embracing the love of men in general, is a command to love all men. Taken in this sense, however, it is turned into an abstraction. The people whom one can love, and for whom our love is real, are a few particular individuals; the heart which seeks to embrace the whole of humanity within itself indulges in a vain attempt to spread out its love until it becomes a mere idea, the opposite of real love.

Love, in the sense in which Christ understood it, is primarily moral love of our neighbour in those particular relations in which we stand to him; but, above all, it is meant to express the relation existing between His disciples and followers, the bond which makes them one. And here it is not to be understood as meaning that each is to have his particular occupation, interests, and relations in life, and is further to love in addition to all this, but that this love, as something apart which abstracts from all else, is to be the central point in which they live, and is to constitute their business.

They are to love one another, nothing more or less, and consequently are not to have any particular end in view whatever, ends connected with the family, political ends, nor are they to love because of these particular ends. Love, on the contrary, is abstract personality, and the identity of this in one consciousness in which it is not any longer possible for special ends to exist. Here, therefore, no other objective end exists unless this love. This love, which is independent, and which is thus made a centre, finally becomes the higher divine love itself.

At first, however, this love, as a love which as yet has no objective end, also takes up a polemical attitude to the existing order of things, especially to the Jewish existing order. All those actions commanded by the Law by the doing of which apart from love, men formerly estimated their moral worth, are declared to be dead works, and Christ Himself heals on the Sabbath.


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 The following moment or determinate element accordingly enters into these doctrines. While this command of love is directly expressed in the words, “Seek the Kingdom of God,” abandon yourself to the truth; and while the demand is made in this immediate way, it appears as if in the form of a subjective statement, and so far the person speaking comes into view.

In accordance with this reference to a person, Christ does not speak as a teacher merely who states his own subjective view, and who is conscious of what he produces in the way of truth and of his own action in the matter, but as a prophet; He is one who, since this demand is direct, utters the command directly from God, and as one out of whom God thus speaks.

The fact that this possession of this life of the spirit in truth is attained without intermediate helps, is expressed in the prophetic manner, namely, that it is God who thus speaks. Here it is with absolute, divine truth, truth in-and-for-itself, that we are concerned; this utterance and willing of the truth in-and-for-itself, and the carrying out of what is thus expressed, is described as an act of God, it is the consciousness of the real unity of the divine will, of its harmony with the truth. It is as conscious of this elevation of His spirit, and in the assurance of His identity with God that Christ says, “Woman, thy sins are forgiven thee.” Here there speaks in Him that overwhelming majesty which can undo everything, and actually declares that this has been done.

So far as the form of this utterance is concerned, what has mainly to be emphasised is that He who thus speaks is at the same time essentially Man, it is the Son of Man who thus speaks, in whom this utterance of the truth, this carrying into practice of what is absolute and essential, this activity on God’s part, is essentially seen to exist as in one who is a man and not something superhuman, not something which appears in the form of an outward revelation—in short, the main stress is to be laid on the


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1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Garland, Hamlin

GARLAND, HAMLIN (1860-), American writer, was born at West Salem, Wis., Sept. 16 1860. His father, a farmer, migrated to Iowa, where the boy grew up. He graduated from the Cedar Valley Seminary, Osage, at the age of 21, and taught for a year in Illinois. In 1883 he took up a claim in Dakota; but the following year went to Boston, where he read diligently in the public library and turned to story writing. In 1887 he revisited the scenes of his boyhood, and the drudgery of farm life in the Middle West furnished him with abundant material for his realistic tales. His works include Main Travelled Roads (1891); Prairie Folks (1892); A Member of the Third House (1892); A Spoil of Office (1892); Rose of Dutcher's Cooley (1895); Boy Life on the Prairie (1899); Her Mountain Lover (1901); The Captain of the Gray Horse Troop (1902); The Long Trail (1907); Money Magic (1907); Cavanagh (1909); Other Main Travelled Roads (1910); Victor Olnee's Discipline (1911); The Forester's

Daughter (1914); A Son of the Middle Border (1917) and A Daughter of the Middle Border (1921). He was made a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1918.


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 fact that this divine presence is essentially identical with what is human.

Christ calls Himself the Son of God and the Son of Man; these titles are to be taken in their strict meaning. The Arabs mutually describe themselves as the son of a certain tribe; Christ belongs to the human race; that is His tribe. Christ is also the Son of God; it is possible to explain away by exegesis the true sense of this expression, the truth of the Idea, what Christ has been for His Church, and the higher Idea of the truth which has been found in Him in His Church, and to say that all the children of men are children of God, or are meant to make themselves children of God, and so on.

Since, however, the teaching of Christ taken by itself belongs to the world of ordinary figurative ideas only, and takes to do with inner feeling and disposition, it is supplemented by the representation of the Divine Idea in His life and fate. That Kingdom of God, as constituting the content of Christ’s teaching, is at first the Idea in a general form, represented as yet in a general conception; it is by means of this individual man that it enters into the region of reality, so that those who are to reach that Kingdom can do it through that one individual.

The primary point is, to start with, the abstract correspondence between the acts, deeds, and sufferings of this teacher, and His own teaching, the fact that His life was wholly devoted to carrying it out, that He did not shun death, and that He sealed His faith by His death. The fact that Christ became a martyr for the truth has an intimate connection with His appearing thus on the earth. Since the founding of the Kingdom of God is in direct contradiction with the actually existing State, which is based on a different view of religion, and which ascribes a different character to it, the fate of Christ, whereby—to put it in human language—He became a martyr for the truth, is in close connection with the manner of His appearing above referred to.


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 These are the principal elements in the manifestation of Christ in a human form. This teacher gathered friends around Him. Inasmuch as His doctrines were revolutionary Christ was accused and condemned, and so He sealed the truth of His teaching by His death. Even unbelief goes this length in the view it takes of His history; it is exactly similar to that of Socrates, only in different surroundings. Socrates, too, made men conscious of the inwardness of their nature. His δαιμόνιον is nothing else than this inner life. He, too, taught that Man must not stop short with obedience to ordinary authority, but form convictions for himself, and act in accordance with these convictions. These two individualities are similar, and their fates are also similar. The inwardness of Socrates was in direct opposition to the religious belief of his nation, and to the form of government, and consequently he was condemned; he, too, died for the truth.

Christ lived merely amongst a different people, and His teaching has so far a different complexion. But the Kingdom of God and the idea of purity of heart contain an infinitely greater depth of truth than the inwardness of Socrates. This is the outward history of Christ, which is for unbelief just what the history of Socrates is for us.

With the death of Christ, however, there begins the conversion of consciousness. The death of Christ is the central point round which all else turns, and in the conception formed of it lies the difference between the outward way of conceiving of it and Faith, i.e., regarding it with the spirit, taking our start from the spirit of truth, from the Holy Spirit. According to the comparison above referred to, Christ is a man just like Socrates, a teacher who lived virtuously, and made men conscious of what is essentially true, of what must constitute the basis of human consciousness. According to the higher way of regarding the matter, however, the divine nature was revealed in Christ. This consciousness is reflected in those passages which state that the Son knows the Father, &c.,