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 of the opposite characteristics in something higher is not merely our act, or a matter with which we only have to do, in the sense that we only bring it about, but expresses the very nature and action of these characteristics themselves, since they are united in one characteristic. So, too, these two moments of necessity, namely, that its mediation with an Other is in itself, and that it does away with this mediation and posits itself by its own act because of this very unity, are not separate acts. In the mediation with an Other it relates itself to itself, that is, the Other through which it mediates itself with itself is itself. Thus as an Other it is negated; it is itself the Other, but only momentarily—momentarily without, however, introducing the quality of time into the notion, a quality which first appears when the notion comes to have a definite existence. This Other-Being or otherness is essentially something which disappears in something higher, and it is in determinate existence also that it appears as a real Other. But the absolute necessity is the necessity which is adequate to its notion or conception.


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 TWELFTH LECTURE

the previous Lecture the notion or conception of absolute necessity was explained—of absolute necessity, I repeat. Very often absolute means nothing more than abstract, and very frequently, too, it is imagined that when the word absolute is used everything is said that is necessary, and that no further definition can or ought to be given. As a matter of fact it is just with this definition that we are chiefly concerned. Absolute necessity is abstract, the abstract pure and simple, inasmuch as it depends on itself and does not subsist in or from or through an Other. But we have seen that it is not only adequate to its notion or conception, whatever that notion be, so that we were able to compare this notion and its external existence; but that it represents this very adequacy itself. Thus what might be taken as the external aspect is contained in itself, so that this very fact that it depends on itself, this identity or reference to self which constitutes the isolation of things in virtue of which they are contingent, is a form of independence which again is really a want of independence. Possibility is an abstraction of the same kind. A thing is possible if it does not contradict itself, that is, it is what is merely identical with itself, something in which there is no kind of identity with an Other, while, on the other hand, it has not its Other within itself. Contingency and possibility differ only in this, that the contingent has in addition a definite existence. The possible has only the possibility of existence. But the contingent itself has an existence which has absolutely no value beyond being a possibility; it is, but quite as much it is not. In the case of

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, the nature of determinate Being or existence belonging to it is, as has been already remarked, so far evident that it is seen at the same time to have the character of something which is virtually a nullity, and consequently the transition to its Other, to the Necessary, is already expressed in that existence itself. It is an instance of the same thing as we have in abstract identity, which is a simple reference to self; it is known as a possibility, and being a possibility it is recognised that it is not yet anything. The fact that something is possible does not really imply anything. Identity is characterised as sterility, and that is what it really is.

What is wanting in this characteristic finds its complement, as we have seen, in the characteristic which is its antithesis. Necessity is not abstract, but truly absolute, solely in virtue of the fact that it contains the connection with an Other in itself, that it is self-differentiation, but a differentiation which has disappeared in something higher and is ideal. It consequently contains what belongs to necessity in general, but it is distinguished from this latter as being external and finite, and as involving a connection having reference to something else which remains Being and has the value of Being, and so is merely dependence. It goes by the name of necessity too, inasmuch as mediation is in general essential to necessity. The connection of its Other with something else, which is what constitutes it, does not get support from the ends for which it exists. Absolute necessity, on the other hand, transforms any such relation to an Other into a relation to itself, and consequently produces what is really inner harmony with itself.

Spirit rises above contingency and external necessity, just because these thoughts are in themselves insufficient and unsatisfying. It finds satisfaction in the thought of absolute necessity, because this latter represents something at peace with itself. Its result as result, however, is—it is so, it is simply necessary. Thus all aspiration,


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 all effort, all longing after an Other, have passed away, for in it the Other has disappeared, there is no finitude in it, it is absolutely complete in itself, it is infinite and present in itself, there is nothing outside of it. It has in it no limit, for its nature is to be with itself, or at home with itself. It is not the act of rising to this necessity on the part of Spirit which in itself produces satisfaction. The satisfaction has reference to the goal Spirit tries to reach, and the satisfaction is in proportion to its ability to reach this goal.

If we pause for a moment to consider this subjective satisfaction, we find that it reminds us of what the Greeks found in the idea of subjection to necessity. That Man should yield to inevitable destiny was the advice of the wise, and this was in particular the truth expressed by the tragic chorus, and we admire the repose of their heroes and the calmness with which they freely and undauntedly accept the lot which destiny has assigned to them. This necessity, and the aims of their own wills which are annihilated by it, the compulsory force of this destiny and freedom, appear as the opposing elements, and seem to leave no room for reconciliation nor for any kind of satisfaction. In fact the play of this antique necessity is shrouded in a sadness which is neither driven away by defiance nor disfigured by any feeling of bitterness, and all lamentation is rather suppressed by silence than stilled by the healing of the wounded heart. The element of satisfaction found by Spirit in the thought of necessity is to be sought for in this alone, that Spirit simply abides by that abstract result of necessity expressed in the words, “it is so,” a result brought about by Spirit within itself. In this pure is there is no longer any content; all ends, all interests, all wishes, even the concrete feeling of life itself, have disappeared and vanished in it. Spirit produces this abstract result in itself just because it has given up this particular content of its will, the very substance of its life, and has


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 renounced everything. It thus transforms into freedom the compulsion exercised upon it by fatality. For this force or compulsion can lay hold of it only by seizing on those sides of its nature which in its concrete existence have an inner and an outer determinate Being. As connected with external existence, Man is under the influence of external force in the shape of other men, of circumstances, and so on; but external existence has its roots in what is inward, in his impulses, interests, and aims; they are the bonds, morally justifiable and morally ordained, or, it may be, not justifiable, which bring him into subjection to force. But the roots belong to his inner life, they are his; he can tear them out of his heart; his will, his freedom represent that power of abstraction from everything whereby the heart can make itself the grave of the heart. When the heart thus inwardly renounces itself, it leaves to force nothing upon which it can lay hold. What is crushed by force is a form of existence which is devoid of heart, an externality in which force can no longer affect Man: he is outside of the sphere in which force can strike.

It has been previously remarked that the result, it is so, is the result of the necessity, to which Man clings; and he abides by it as a result, that is, in the sense that it is he who produces this abstract Being. This is the other moment of necessity, mediation through the negation of otherness. This Other is the determinate in general, which we have seen in the form of inner existence, the giving up of concrete aims and interests; for they are not only the ties which bind Man to externality, and consequently bring him into subjection to it, but they themselves represent the particular element, and are external to what is most inward, the self-thinking pure universality, the pure relation of freedom to itself. It is the strength of this freedom that it can in this abstract way comprise within itself and put within itself that particular element which is outside of itself, and can thus make it


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 into something external in which it can no longer be disturbed. The reason why we men are unhappy, or unsatisfied, or simply fretful, is because of the division within us, that is, because of the contradiction represented by the fact that these impulses, aims, and interests, or simply these demands, wishes, and reflections are in us, and that at the same time our existence has in it what is the Other, the antithesis of these. This disunion or unrest in us can be removed in a twofold manner. On the one hand, our outward existence, our condition, the circumstances which affect us and in which our interests in general are involved, may be brought into harmony with the roots of their interests in ourselves, a harmony which is experienced in the form of happiness and satisfaction. On the other hand, in the event of there being a disunion between the two, and consequently in the event of unhappiness, instead of satisfaction there is a natural repose of the heart, or, where the injury goes deeper and affects an energetic will and its just claims, the heroic strength of the will produces at the same time a contentment by taking kindly to the actual state of things and by submitting to what actually is, and this is a yielding in which the mind does not in a one-sided way let go its hold on what is external, circumstances, or the actual condition of things, because they have been overcome and are overpowered, but which gives up by an act of its own will its inner determinateness and allows it to go. This freedom of abstraction is not without an element of pain; but the pain is brought down to the level of natural pain, and has not in it the pain of penitence, the pain attaching to the rebellious sense of wrong-doing, just as it has no consolation or hope. But then it is not in need of consolation, for consolation presupposes a claim which is still maintained and asserted and does not in one way really satisfy, while looked at in another way, it seeks a compensation, and in the act of hoping, a desire for something has been kept in reserve.


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 But it is just here that we find that moment of sadness already referred to, and which diffuses itself over this act, whereby necessity is transfigured and becomes freedom. The freedom here is the result of mediation through the negation of things finite. As abstract Being, the satisfaction gained is empty reference to self, the inner unsubstantial solitude of self-consciousness.

This defect lies in the determinate character of the result as well as of the starting-point. It is the same in both of these, that is to say, it is just the indeterminateness of Being. The same defect which has been noted as present in the form taken by the process of necessity, as this process exists in the region of the volition of subjective Spirit, will be found, too, in the process when it is an objective content for the thinking consciousness. The defect, however, does not lie in the nature of the process itself; and we have now to consider that process in the theoretical form, which is the point we have specially to deal with.


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general form of the process has been already referred to as consisting of a mediation with self which contains the moment of mediation in such a way that the Other is posited as something negated or ideal. This process has likewise been described, so far as its more definite moments are concerned, as it presents itself in the form of Man’s elevation to God by the path of religion. We have now to compare the explanation given of the act whereby Spirit raises itself to God with that to be found in the formal expression which is called a proof.

The difference between them seems slight, but it is important, and supplies the reason why proof of this kind has been represented as inadequate and has generally been abandoned. Because what is material is contingent, therefore there exists an absolutely necessary Essence; this is the simple fashion in which the connection of ideas is put. Since mention is here made of an Essence, and since we have spoken only of absolute necessity, this necessity may certainly be hypostatised in this way; but the Essence is still indeterminate, and is not a subject or anything living, and still less is it Spirit. We shall, however, afterwards discuss the Essence as such in so far as it contains a determinate quality which has any interest in the present connection.

What is of primary importance is the relation indicated in the proposition: because the One, the contingent, exists, is, therefore the Other, the Absolutely-necessary, is, or exists. Here there are two forms of Being in connection, one form of Being connected with another form of

Being, a connection which we have seen in the shape of


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 external necessity. It is, however, this very external necessity which is recognised to be a form of dependence in which the result depends on the starting-point, but which, in fact, by sinking to a state of contingency, is recognised to be unsatisfying. It is against it, accordingly, that the protests have been directed which have been advanced against this method of proof.

It contains, that is to say, the relation according to which the one characteristic, that of absolutely necessary Being, is mediated by the Other, by means of the characteristic of contingent Being, whereby the former is put in a dependent relation, in the relation, in fact, of what is conditioned to its condition. This was the main objection which, speaking generally, Jacobi brought against the knowledge of God, namely, that to know or to comprehend means merely “to deduce anything from its more immediate causes, or to look at its immediate conditions as a series” (Letters on the Doctrine of Spinoza, p. 419); “to comprehend the Unconditioned therefore means to make it into something conditioned or to make it an effect.” The latter category, however, according to which the Absolutely-necessary is taken as an effect, can be at once discounted, since the relation it implies is in too direct contradiction to the characteristic with which we are dealing, namely, the Absolutely-necessary. The relation of the condition, which is also that of the ground, is, however, of a more outward character, and can more easily find favour. In any case it is present in the proposition: because the contingent exists, therefore the Absolutely-necessary exists.

While it must be granted that this defect exists, it is, on the other hand, to be observed that no objective significance is given to a relation like this implying conditionateness and dependence. This relation is present only in an absolutely subjective sense. The proposition does not state, and is not meant to state, that the Absolutely-necessary has conditions, and is in fact conditioned


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 by the contingent world—quite the contrary. The entire development of the connection is seen only in the act of proof. It is only our knowledge of the Absolutely-necessary which is conditioned by that starting-point. The Absolutely-necessary does not exist in virtue of the fact that it raises itself out of the world of contingency, and requires this world as its starting-point and presupposition, in order that by starting from it it may thus first reach its Being. It cannot be the Absolutely-necessary, it cannot be God who has to be thought of thus as something mediated by an Other, as something dependent and conditioned. It is the content of the proof itself which corrects the defect which is visible only in its form. We are thus in presence of a distinction and a difference between the form and the nature of the content, and the form is more certainly seen to contain the defective element, from the very fact that the content is the Absolutely-necessary. This content is not itself devoid of form, as was evident from the nature of its determination. Its own form as being the form of the True is itself true, and the form which differs from it is for that reason the Untrue.

If we take what we have in general designated Form, in its more concrete signification, namely, as knowledge, we find ourselves amongst the well-known and favourite categories of finite knowledge, which as being subjective is defined generally as finite, while the course followed by the movement of knowledge belonging to it is defined as a finite act. Here accordingly the same element of inadequacy appears only in another shape. Knowledge is a finite act, and any such act cannot involve the comprehension of the Absolutely-necessary, of the Infinite. Knowledge demands, in short, that it should have the content in itself and should follow it. The knowledge which has an absolutely necessary, infinite content must itself be absolutely necessary and infinite. We thus find ourselves in the best position for wrestling once more with


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 the antithesis whose affirmative and subsidiary help given by what was more of the nature of immediate knowledge, faith, feeling, and such like, we dealt with in the first Lectures. We must for the present leave the Form in this shape alone, but later on we shall have some reflections to make on the categories belonging to it. We have in the meantime to deal with the Form in the more definite shape in which it appears in the proof which forms the subject of discussion.

If we call to mind the formal syllogism previously dealt with, it will be seen that one part of the first proposition, the major proposition that is, runs thus—If the contingent exists; and this is expressed in a more direct way in the other proposition—There is a contingent world. While in the former of these propositions the characteristic of contingency is posited essentially in its connection with the Absolutely-necessary, it is nevertheless stated to be at the same time something contingent which has Being. It is in the second proposition, or in this characteristic of the existent as it appears in the first, that the defect lies, and this in fact means that it is directly self-contradictory, and shows itself to be in its very nature an untrue one-sidedness. The contingent, the finite is expressed in terms of what has Being; but it is, on the contrary, characteristic of the finite that it should have an end and drop away, that it should be a kind of Being which has the value of what is merely a possibility and which may either be or not be.

This fundamental error is found in the form of the connection, which is that of an ordinary syllogism. A syllogism of this kind has a permanent immediate element in its premisses, it is based on presuppositions which are stated to be not only what is primary, but to be the permanent primary existent element with which the Other is in general so closely connected as some kind of consequence, something conditioned, and so on, that the two characteristics thus linked together constitute a relation


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 which is external and finite, in which each of the two sides is in a relation of reference to the other. It constitutes one of the characteristics of these two sides, but it has at the same time a substantial existence of its own outside of the relation between them. The characteristic which the two different elements taken together constitute, and which is in itself simply one, is the Absolutely-necessary. Its name at once declares it to be the Only-one, what truly is, the only reality. We have seen how its notion is the mediation which returns into itself, the mediation which is merely a mediation with itself by means of the Other which is distinguished from it, and which is taken up into the One, the Absolutely-necessary, negated as something having Being, and preserved merely as something ideal. Outside of this absolute, inherent unity, however, the two sides of the relation are in this kind of syllogism kept also externally apart from each other as things which have Being; the contingent is. This proposition is inherently self-contradictory, and is likewise in contradiction with the result, the absolute necessity, which is not merely placed on one side, but, on the contrary, is the whole of Being.

If therefore we begin with the contingent, we must not set out from it as if it were something which is to remain fixed in such a way that it continues to be in the further development of the argument something which has Being. This is its one-sided determinateness. On the contrary, it is to be posited with its completely determinate character, which implies that non-Being may quite as well be attributed to it, and that it consequently enters into the result as something which passes away. Not because the contingent is, but, on the contrary, because it is non-Being, merely phenomenal, because its Being is not true reality, the absolute necessity is. This latter is its Being and Truth.

This moment of the Negative is not found in the form taken by the syllogism of the Understanding, and this is


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 why it is defective when it appears in this region which is that of the living reason of Spirit, in the region, that is, in which absolute necessity itself is considered as the true result, as something which does indeed mediate itself through an Other, but mediates itself with itself by absorbing this Other. Thus the course followed by that knowledge of necessity is different from the process which necessity is. Such a course is therefore not to be considered as simply necessary true movement, but rather as finite activity. It is not infinite knowledge, it has not the infinite for its content and for the basis of its activity, for the infinite appears only as this mediation with self through the negation of the negative.

The defect which has been pointed out as existing in this form of the process of reasoning, means, as has been indicated, that the elevation of Spirit to God has not been correctly explained in that proof of the existence of God which it constitutes. If we compare the two we see that this act of elevation is undoubtedly also an act whereby Spirit goes beyond worldly existence, as well as beyond what is merely temporal, changeable, and transitory. The world-element, it is true, is declared to be actual existence, and we start from it; but since, as was remarked, it is defined as the temporal, the contingent, the changeable and transitory, its Being is not satisfying for truth, it is not the truly affirmative, it is defined as what annuls and negates itself. It does not persistently retain its characteristic, to be; on the contrary, a Being is attributed to it which has no more value than non-Being whose characteristic contains in itself its non-Being, its Other, and consequently its contradiction, its disintegration and dissolution. But even if it seem to be the case, or may even actually be the case, that so far as faith is concerned this contingent Being as something present to consciousness remains standing on one side confronting the other side, the Eternal, the Necessary in-and-for-itself, in the form of a world above which is


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 heaven, still the real point is not the fact that a double world has been actually conceived of, but the value which is to be attached to such a conception. This value is expressed when it is said that the one world is the world of appearance or illusion, and the other the world of truth. When the former is abandoned, and we pass over to the other only in the sense that the world of appearance still remains present here, the connection between them as it presents itself to the religious man does not mean that that world is anything more than merely the point of departure, or that it is permanently fixed as a ground or basis to which Being, or the power of acting as a basis or condition, could be attributed. Satisfaction, everything in the way of a foundation or first principle is, on the contrary, found to exist in the eternal world as something which is independent in-and-for-itself. As opposed to this, in the form taken by the syllogism, the Being of both is expressed in a similar way—both in the one proposition of the connection: If a contingent world exists, an Absolutely-necessary exists too; as also in the other in which it is stated as a presupposition that a contingent world does exist; and further, in the third and concluding proposition: Therefore an Absolutely-necessary exists.

A few remarks may be further added regarding these propositions thus definitely expressed. And first of all in connection with the last of them, the way in which the two contrasted characteristics are linked together, must at once strike us: Therefore the Absolutely-necessary exists. Therefore expresses mediation through an Other, and yet it is immediacy, and directly absorbs the former of these characteristics, which, as has been indicated, is just what supplies the reason why such knowledge regarding whatever is its object is declared to be inadmissible. The abolition of mediation through an Other exists, however, potentially only. The syllogism, on the other hand, as exhibited in detail, gives full


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 expression to this. Truth is a force of such a character that it is present even in what is false, and it only requires correct observation and attention in order to discover the True in the False itself, or rather actually to see it there. The True is here mediation with self by the negation of the Other and of the mediation through the Other. The negation, both of mediation through an Other, as well as of the abstract immediacy which is devoid of mediation, is present in the “therefore” above referred to.

Further, if the one proposition is: The contingent is, and the other: The necessary in-and-for-itself is, this essentially suggests that the Being of the contingent has an absolutely different value from necessary Being in-and-for-itself. Still Being is what is common to both, and it is the one characteristic in both propositions. In accordance with this the transition does not take the form of a passing from one form of Being to another, but from one characteristic of thought to another. Being purifies itself from the predicate of contingency, which is inadequate to express its nature. Being is simple self-identity or equality with self. Contingency, on the other hand, is Being which is absolutely unlike itself, which contradicts itself, and it is only in the Absolutely-necessary that it is once more restored to this condition of self-identity. It is accordingly here that the course thus followed by the act of elevation to God, or this aspect of the act of proof, differs more definitely from the others referred to, in this, namely, that in the former of the two methods of procedure the characteristic which has to be proved, or is supposed to result from the proof, is not Being. Being is rather what the two aspects have permanently in common and which is continued from the one into the other. In the other method of procedure, on the contrary, the transition has to be made from the notion or conception of God to His Being. This transition seems more difficult than that from a determinateness of content in general, what


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 we are accustomed to call a notion or conception, to another conception, and to what is more homogeneous, therefore, than the transition from the notion to Being is apt to appear.

The idea which lies at the basis of this is that Being is not itself a conception or thought. The proper place to consider it, in this antithesis in which it is exhibited as independent and isolated, will be when we come to deal with the proof referred to. Here, however, we have not, to begin with, to take it abstractly and independently. The fact that it is the element common to the two characteristics, the contingent and the Absolutely-necessary, suggests a comparison and an external separation between it and them, while at first it is in inseparable union with each, with contingent Being and absolutely necessary Being. In this way we shall once more take up the form of the proof already referred to, and bring out still more definitely the difference in the contradiction which it undergoes, regarded from the two opposite sides, the philosophical side, and that of the abstract understanding.

The proposition indicated expresses the following connection—

Because contingent Being exists, therefore absolutely necessary Being exists.

If we take this connection in its simple sense without characterising it more definitely by means of the category of a ground, or reason, or the like, its meaning is merely this—

Contingent Being is at the same time the Being of an Other, that of the absolutely necessary Being.

This phrase “at the same time” seems to imply a contradiction, over against which the two contrasted propositions are placed as solutions, of which the one is—

The Being of the contingent is not its own Being, but merely the Being of an Other, and in a definite sense it is the Being of its own Other, the Absolutely-necessary. And the other—


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 The Being of the contingent is merely its own Being, and is not the Being of an Other, of the Absolutely-necessary.

It has been shown that the first of these propositions has the true meaning, which was also the meaning expressed by the idea contained in the transition. We shall take up further on the speculative or philosophical connection which is itself immanent in those determinations of thought which constitute contingency.

The other proposition, however, is the proposition of the Understanding in which thinkers of modern times have so firmly intrenched themselves. What can be more reasonable than to hold that anything, any form of existence, and so, too, the contingent, since it is, is its own Being, is in fact just the definite Being which it is, and not rather an other kind of Being! The contingent is in this way retained on its own account separately from the Absolutely-necessary.

It is still easier to employ the characteristics finite and Infinite in order to express these two characteristics above mentioned, and thus to take the finite for itself, as isolated from its other, the Infinite. There is therefore, it is said, no bridge, no passage from finite Being to infinite Being. The finite is related only to itself, and not to its Other. The distinction which was made between knowledge as form and knowledge as content, is an empty one. This very difference between the two was rightly made the basis of syllogisms, syllogisms which start with the hypothesis that knowledge is finite, and for this reason conclude that this knowledge cannot know the Infinite because it has not the power of comprehending it. Conversely it is concluded that if knowledge did comprehend the Infinite it would necessarily be infinite itself; but it is admittedly not infinite, therefore it has not the power of knowing the Infinite. Its action is defined just as its content is. Finite knowledge and infinite knowledge yield the same kind of relation as is yielded by the


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 finite and the Infinite in general. The only difference is that infinite knowledge is in a relation of stronger repulsion towards its opposite than the naked Infinite, and points more directly to the separation of the two sides of the antithesis, so that one only remains, namely, finite knowledge. In this way all relation based on mediation disappears, every kind of relation, that is, in which the finite and the Infinite as such, and so, too, the contingent and the Absolutely-necessary, might have stood to each other. The form of finite and Infinite is the one which has come to be most in vogue in connection with this way of looking at the question. That form is more abstract, and accordingly seems more comprehensive, than the first-mentioned.

The finite in general and finite knowledge have thus necessity directly ascribed to them over and above contingency. This necessity takes the form of continuous advance in the series of causes and effects, conditions and things conditioned, and was formerly described as external necessity, and was included in the finite as forming a part of it. It can be understood, indeed, only in reference to knowledge, but when included in the finite it is put in contrast with the Infinite without risk of the misapprehension which might arise through the employment of the category of the Absolutely-necessary.

If, accordingly, we keep to this expression, then the relation of finitude and infinitude at which we stop short will be that of their absence of relation, their absence of reference. We have reached the position that the finite as a whole and finite knowledge are incapable of grasping the Infinite in general, as well as the Infinite in the form it takes as absolute necessity, and also of comprehending the Infinite by the aid of the conceptions of contingency and finitude from which finite knowledge starts. Finite knowledge is accordingly finite just because it is based on finite conceptions; and the finite, including also finite knowledge, stands in relation to itself only, does not go


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 beyond itself, because it is its own Being, and not in any sense the Being of an Other, and, least of all, the Being of its own Other. This is the proposition upon which so much reliance is placed. It supplies no way of passing from the finite to the Infinite, nor from the contingent to the Absolutely-necessary, nor from effects to an absolutely first non-finite cause. A gulf is simply fixed between them.


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 FOURTEENTH LECTURE

dogmatic view of the absolute separation between the finite and the Infinite has to do with Logic. It involves an opinion regarding the nature of the conceptions of the finite and the Infinite which is treated of in Logic. Here we shall confine ourselves chiefly to those characteristics which we have partly dealt with in the preceding Lectures, but which are also found in our own consciousness. The characteristics which belong to the nature of the conceptions themselves, and which have been exhibited in the Logic in their own pure determinateness and in that of their connection, must show themselves and be present in our ordinary consciousness as well.

When, therefore, it is said that the Being of the finite is only its own Being, and is in no sense the Being of an Other, it is thereby declared that there is no possible way of passing from the finite to the Infinite, and therefore no mediation between them, neither in themselves nor in and for knowledge, so that, although the finite is mediated through the Infinite, still the converse is not true, which is just the real point of interest. Appeal is thus already made to the fact that the Spirit of Man rises out of the contingent, the temporal, the finite, to God as representing the Absolutely-necessary, the Eternal, the Infinite, to the fact that the so-called gulf does not exist for Spirit, and that it really accomplishes the transition, and that the heart of Man, spite of the Understanding which asserts the existence of this absolute separation, will not admit that there is any such gulf, but, on the contrary, actually makes the transition from the finite to the Infinite in the act of rising to God.


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 The ready reply to this, however, is that if you grant the fact of this rising to God, there is certainly an act of transition on the part of Spirit, but not of Spirit in itself, not a transition in the conceptions, or indeed in any sense of the conceptions themselves; and the reason of this just is that in the conception as here understood, the Being of the finite is its own Being and not the Being of an Other. When we thus regard finite Being as standing in relation to itself only, it is merely for itself, and is not Being for an Other. It is consequently taken out of the region of change, is unchangeable and absolute. This is how the matter stands with these so-called conceptions. Those, however, who assert the impossibility of any such transition will not admit that the finite is absolute, unchangeable, imperishable, and eternal. If the error involved in taking the finite as absolute were merely an error of the Schools, an illogical result the blame of which is to be put on the Understanding; if it were to be regarded, in fact, as belonging to those abstractions of an extreme kind with which we have got to do here, then we might very well ask if an error of this sort really mattered much since we might certainly regard these abstractions as of no account compared with the fulness of spiritual life found in religion, which, moreover, constitutes the great and really living interest of Spirit. But that it is exclusively the finite which constitutes the true interest amongst these so-called great and living interests, is only too evident from the attention paid to religion itself, in connection with which, and as a consequence of the fundamental principle referred to an amount of study has been bestowed on the history of the finite materials of the subject, on the history of external events and opinions far beyond that given to the infinite element, which has been confessedly reduced to a minimum. It is by the employment of thoughts and of these abstract categories of finite and Infinite that the renunciation of the knowledge of truth is supposed to be justified, and


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 as a matter of fact it is in the region of pure thought that all these interests of Spirit have free play, in order that they may there have their real nature decided, for thoughts constitute the really inner substantiality of the concrete reality of Spirit.

But suppose we leave this conception of the Understanding, and its assertion that the Being of the finite is only its own Being, and not the Being of an Other, not transition itself, and take up the further idea which emphasises the element of knowledge. If it is agreed that Spirit does actually make this transition, then the fact of this transition is not a fact of knowledge, but of Spirit in general, and in a definite sense of faith. It has been sufficiently proved that this act of elevation to God, whether seen in feeling or in faith, or however you choose to define the mode of its spiritual existence, takes place in the inmost part of Spirit, in the region of thought. Religion as representing what concerns the innermost part of Man’s nature has its centre and the root of its movement in thought. God in His Essence is thought, the act of thought itself, just as the ordinary representation of Him and the shape given to Him in the mind, as well as the form and mode in which religion appears, are defined as feeling, intuition, faith, and so on. Knowledge, however, does nothing beyond bringing this inward element into consciousness on its own account, beyond forming a conception of that pulsation of thought in terms of thought. In this, knowledge may appear one-sided, and it may appear all the more as if feeling, intuition, and faith essentially belonged to religion, and were more closely connected with God than His thinking notion and His notion as expressed in thought; but this inner element is present here, and thought just consists in getting a knowledge of it, and rational knowledge in general just means that we know a thing in its essential determinateness.

To have rational knowledge or cognition, to


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 or grasp in thought, are terms which, like “immediate” and “faith,” belong to present-day culture. They have the authority of a preconceived idea which has a twofold character. On the one hand, there is the fact that they are absolutely familiar, and are consequently final categories regarding whose signification and verification there is no need to inquire further. On the other hand, there is the fact that the inability of reason to comprehend and know the True and the Infinite is something settled quite as much as their general meaning is. The words, to know or cognise, to comprehend or grasp in thought, have the value of a magical formula. It never occurs to those under the influence of this preconceived idea to ask what the expressions to know, to grasp in thought, mean, or to get a clear idea of them, and yet that would be the sole and only point of importance if we were to say something that was really pertinent regarding the main question. In any such investigation it would be evident of itself that knowledge merely expresses the fact of the transition which Spirit itself makes, and in so far as knowledge is true knowledge or comprehension it is a consciousness of the necessity which is contained in the transition itself, and is nothing save the act of forming a conception of this characteristic which is immanent and present in it.

But if, so far as the fact of the transition from the finite to the Infinite is concerned, it is replied that this transition takes place in the spirit, or in faith, feeling, and the like, such an answer would not be the whole answer, which rather essentially takes the following form. Religious belief, or feeling, inner revelation, means that we have an immediate knowledge of God which is not reached by mediation. It means that the transition does not consist of an essential connection between the two sides, but is made in the form of a leap from one to the other. What we would call a transition is broken up in this way into two separate acts which are outwardly


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 opposed, and follow each other in succession of time only, and are related to each other by being compared or recalled. The finite and the Infinite simply keep in this condition of separation, and this being presupposed, Spirit occupies itself with the finite in a particular way; and in occupying itself with the Infinite in the way of feeling, faith, knowledge, it performs a separate, immediate and simple action—not an act of transition. Just as the finite and the Infinite are without relation to each other, so, too, the acts of Spirit by which it fills itself with these characteristics, and fills itself either with the one or the other, have no relation to each other. Even if they happen to exist contemporaneously, so that the finite is found in consciousness along with the Infinite, they are merely mixed together. They are two independent forms of activity which do not enter into any relation of mediation with each other.

The repetition which is involved in this conception of the ordinary division of the finite and the Infinite has already been referred to—that separation by which the finite is put on one side in an independent form, and the Infinite on the other in contrast with it, while the former is not the less asserted in this way to be absolute. This is the dualism which, put in a more definite form, is Manicheism. But even those who maintain the existence of such a relation will not admit that the finite is absolute, and yet they cannot escape the conclusion which does not merely flow from the statement referred to, but is just this very statement itself, that the finite has no connection with the Infinite, that there is no possible way of passing from the one to the other, but that the one is absolutely distinct from the other. But even if a relation is conceived of as actually existing, it is, owing to the admitted incompatibility between them, a relation of a merely negative kind. The Infinite is thought of as the True and the only Affirmative, that is, the abstract Affirmative, so that its relation to the finite is that of a


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 force in which the finite is annihilated. The finite, in order to be, must keep out of the way of the Infinite, must flee from it. If it comes into contact with it, it can only perish. As regards the subjective existence of these characteristics with which we are dealing, as represented, namely, by finite and infinite knowledge, we find that the one side, that of infinitude, is the immediate knowledge of Man by God. The entire other side, again, is Man in general; it is he who is the finite about which we are chiefly concerned, and it is just this knowledge of God on his part, whether it is called immediate or not, which is his Being, his finite knowledge, and the transition from it to the Infinite. If, accordingly, the manner in which Spirit deals with the finite, and that in which it deals with the Infinite, are supposed to represent two different forms of activity, then the latter form of activity as representing the elevation of Spirit to God would not be the immanent transition referred to; and when Spirit occupied itself with the finite it would in turn do this in an absolute way, and be entirely confined to the finite as such. This point would allow of being dealt with at great length, but it may be sufficient here to remember that, although the finite is the object and the end dealt with by this side, it can occupy itself with it in a true way, whether in the form of cognition, knowledge, opinion, or in a practical and moral fashion, only in so far as the finite is not taken for itself, but is known, recognised, and its existence affirmed in connection with the relation in which it stands to the Infinite, to the Infinite in it, in so far, in fact, as it is an object and an end in connection with this latter category. It is well enough known what place is given to the religious element both in the case of individuals and even in religions themselves, and how this religious element in the form of devotion, contrition of heart and spirit, and the giving of offerings, comes to be regarded as a matter apart with which we can occupy ourselves and then have done with; while the secular life,


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 the sphere of finitude, exists alongside of it, and gives itself up to the pursuit of its own ends, and is left to its own interests without any influence being exercised upon it by the Infinite, the Eternal, and the True—that is, without there being any passing over into the Infinite within the sphere of the finite, without the finite coming to truth and morality by the mediation of the Infinite, and so, too, without the Infinite being brought into the region of present reality through the mediation of the finite. We do not require here to enter upon the consideration of the lame conclusion that the one who has knowledge, namely, Man, must be absolute in order to comprehend the Absolute, because the same thing applies to faith or immediate knowledge as being also an inner act of comprehension, if not of the absolute Spirit of God, at all events of the Infinite. If this knowledge is so afraid of the concrete element in its object, then this object must at least have some meaning for it. It is really the non-concrete which has few characteristics or none at all, that is the abstract, the negative, what is least of all, the Infinite in short.

But then it is just by means of this miserable abstraction of the Infinite that ordinary thought repels the attempt to comprehend the Infinite, and for the simple reason that the present and actual Man, the human spirit, human reason, is definitely opposed to the Infinite in the form of a fixed abstraction of the finite. Ordinary thought would more readily allow that the human spirit, thought, or reason, can comprehend the Absolutely-necessary, for this latter is thus directly declared and stated to be the negative as opposed to its Other, namely, the contingent, which has on its part a necessity too, external necessity that is. What accordingly can be clearer than that Man, who moreover is, that is to say, is something positive or affirmative, cannot comprehend his negative? And conversely, is it not still more clear that since his Being, his affirmation, is finitude, and therefore negation.


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 it cannot comprehend infinitude, which, as opposed to finitude, is equally negation but in the reverse way, since it is Being, affirmation in contrast with the characteristic attached to finitude? What then can be clearer than that finitude comes to Man from both sides? He can comprehend a few feet of space, yet outside of this volume there lies the infinitude of space. He possesses a span of infinite time, which in the same way shrinks up into a moment as compared with this infinite time, just as his volume of space shrinks up into a point. But considered apart from this outward finitude which characterises him in contrast with those infinite externalities, he is intelligence, is able to perceive, to form ideas, to know, to have cognition of things. The object on which he exercises his intelligence is the world, this aggregate of infinite particular things. How small is the number of these known by individual men—it is not Man who knows but the individual—as compared with the infinite mass which actually exists. In order clearly to realise the paltry nature of human knowledge, we have only to remember a fact which cannot be denied, and which we are accustomed to describe as divine Omniscience, and to put it in the fashion in which it is expressed by the organist in L, in a funeral sermon reported in “The Courses of Life on Ascending Lines” (Part II., Supplement B.)—to mention once more a work marked by humour of the highest kind: “Neighbour Brise was speaking to me yesterday about the greatness of the good God, and the idea came into my head that the good God knew how to name every sparrow, every goldfinch, every wren, every mite, every midge, just as you call the people in the village, Schmied’s Gregory, Briefen’s Peter, Heifried’s Hans. Just think how the good God can call to every one of these midges which are so like each other that you would swear they were all sisters and brothers—just think of it!” But as compared with practical finitude the theoretical element


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 at least appears great and wide; and yet how thoroughly we realise what human limitation is, when these aims, and plans, and wishes, and all that so long as it is in the mind has no limits, are brought into contact with the reality for which they are intended. All that wide extent of practical imagination, all that endeavour, that aspiration, reveals its narrowness by the very fact that it is only endeavour, only aspiration. It is this finitude with which the attempt to form a conception of the Infinite, to comprehend it, is confronted. The critical Understanding which holds by this principle, supposed to be so convincing, has really not got beyond the stage of culture occupied by that organist in L        , has in fact not even attained to it. The organist used the pictorial idea referred to in the simplicity of his heart, in order to bring the idea of the greatness of God’s love before a peasant community. The critical Understanding, on the other hand, employs finite things in order to bring objection against God’s love and God’s greatness, that is to say, against God’s presence in the human spirit. This Understanding keeps firmly in its mind the midge of finitude, that proposition already considered—the finite is, a proposition the falseness of which is directly evident, for the finite is something the essential character and nature of which consist just in this that it passes away, that it is not, so that it is impossible to think of the finite or form an idea of it apart from the determination of Not-Being, which is involved in the thought of what is transient. Who has got the length of saying, the finite passes away? If the idea of Now is inserted between the finite and its passing away, and if in this way a kind of permanence is supposed to be given to Being—“the finite passes away, but it is now”—then this Now itself is something which not only passes away, but has itself actually passed away, since it is. The very fact that I have this consciousness of the Now, and have put it into words, shows that it is no longer Now, but something


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 different. It lasts, it is true, but not as this particular Now, and Now can only mean this actual Now, in this particular moment, something without length, a mere point. It continues, in fact, only as being the negation of this particular Now, as the negation of the finite, and consequently as the Infinite, the Universal. The Universal is already infinite. That respect for the Infinite which keeps the Understanding from finding the Infinite in every Universal ought to be called a silly respect. The Infinite is lofty and majestic, but to place its grandeur and majesty in that countless swarm of midges, and to find the infinitude of knowledge in the knowledge of those countless midges, that is, of the individual midges, is a proof of the impotence, not of faith, of Spirit, or of reason, but of the Understanding to conceive of the finite as a nullity, and of its Being as something which has equally the value and signification which belong to Not-Being.

Spirit is immortal; it is eternal; and it is immortal and eternal in virtue of the fact that it is infinite, that it has no such spatial finitude as we associate with the body when we speak of it being five feet in height, two feet in breadth and thickness, that it is not the Now of time, that the content of its knowledge does not consist of these countless midges, that its volition and freedom have not to do with the infinite mass of existing obstacles, nor of the aims and activities which such resisting obstacles and hindrances have to encounter. The infinitude of Spirit is its inwardness, in an abstract sense its pure inwardness, and this is its thought, and this abstract thought is a real, present infinitude, while its concrete inwardness consists in the fact that this thought is Spirit.

Thus, after starting with the absolute separation of the two sides, we have come back to their connection, and it makes no difference whether this connection is represented as existing in the subjective or objective sphere. The only question is as to whether it has been correctly


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 conceived of. In so far as it is represented as merely subjective, as a proof only for us, it is of course granted that it is not objective and has not been correctly conceived of in-and-for-itself. But, then, what is incorrect in it is not to be looked for in the fact that there is no such connection at all, that is to say, that there is no such thing as the elevation of Spirit to God.

The real point, therefore, would be the consideration of this connection in its determinateness. The consideration of it in this way is a matter at once of the deepest and most elevated kind, and just because of this it is the most difficult of tasks. You cannot carry it on by means of finite categories; that is, the modes of thought which we employ in ordinary life and in dealing with contingent things, as well as those we are accustomed to in the sciences, don’t suffice for it. The latter have their foundation, their logic, in connections which belong to what is finite, such as cause and effect; their laws, their descriptive terms, their modes of arguing, are purely relations belonging to what is conditioned, and which lose their significance in the heights where the Infinite is. They must indeed be employed, but at the same time they have always to be referred back to their proper sphere and have their meaning rectified. The fact of the fellowship of God and Man with each other involves a fellowship of Spirit with Spirit. It involves the most important questions. It is a fellowship, and this very circumstance involves the difficulty of at once maintaining the fact of difference and of defining it in such a way as to preserve the fact of fellowship. That Man knows God implies, in accordance with the essential idea of communion or fellowship, that there is a community of knowledge; that is to say, Man knows God only in so far as God Himself knows Himself in Man. This knowledge is God’s self-consciousness, but it is at the same time a knowledge of God on the part of Man, and this knowledge of God by Man is a knowledge of Man by God. The Spirit of Man, whereby


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 he knows God, is simply the Spirit of God Himself. It is at this stage that the questions regarding the freedom of Man, the union of his individual consciousness and knowledge with the knowledge which brings him into fellowship with God, and the knowledge of God in him, come to be discussed. This wealth of relationship which exists between the human spirit and God is not, however, our subject. We have to take up this relationship only in its most abstract aspect, that is to say, in the form of the connection of the finite with the Infinite. However strong the contrast between the poverty of this connection and the wealth of the content referred to may seem, still the logical relation is at the same time also the basis of the movement of that fulness of content.


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 FIFTEENTH LECTURE

connection between these forms of thought referred to which constitutes the entire content of the Proof under discussion, has already been examined in the foregoing Lectures. That this connection does not correspond to the results supposed to be reached in the Proof, is a point to be thoroughly discussed afterwards. The peculiarly speculative aspect of the connection, however, still remains to be considered, and we have here to indicate, without entering upon this logical examination in detail, what characteristic of this connection has reference to this speculative aspect. The moment to which attention has mainly to be directed in reference to this connection, is the fact that it is a transition, that is to say, the point of departure has here the characteristic quality of something negative, has the character of contingent Being, of what is a phenomenon or an appearance only, which has its truth in the Absolutely-necessary, in the truly affirmative element in this latter. As regards, first of all, the former of these characteristics, the negative moment namely, if we are to get a philosophical grasp of it, all that is necessary is that it be not taken as representing mere Nothing. It does not exist in any such abstract form, but, on the contrary, is merely a moment in the contingency of the world. There ought accordingly to be no difficulty in not taking the negative as abstract Nothing. The popular idea of contingency, limitation, finitude, phenomenon, involves the idea of definite Being, of definite existence, but at the same time it substantially involves negation. Ordinary thought is more concrete and true than the Understanding which abstracts, and which when


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 it hears of a negative too easily makes Nothing out of it, pure Nothing, Nothing as such, and gives up all thought of its being in any way connected with existence in so far as existence is defined as contingent, phenomenal, and so on. Reflective analysis points to the two moments which exist in a content of this kind—namely, an affirmative, definite Being, existence as one particular form of Being; but a moment also which involves the quality of finality, mortality, limits, and so on, in the form of negation. Thought, if it is to form a conception of the contingent, cannot allow these moments to be separated into a Nothing for itself and a Being for itself. For they do not exist in this form in the contingent; on the contrary, it comprises both in itself. They are therefore not to be taken as existing each by itself in connection with one another, nor is the contingent to be taken just as it is, as representing the connection between them. This then is the speculative determination. It remains true to the content of ordinary thought or conception, while, on the contrary, this content escapes abstract thought which asserts the independence of the two moments. It has resolved into its parts the contingent, which is the object of the Understanding.

The contingent accordingly, as thus defined, represents what is a contradiction in itself. What thus resolves itself becomes in consequence just exactly what it became in the hands of the Understanding. But resolution is of two sorts. The resolution effected by the Understanding results simply in the disappearance of the object, of the concrete union; while in the other kind of resolution the object is preserved. Still this preservation does not help it much, or not at all, for in being thus preserved it is defined as a contradiction, and contradiction dissolves itself; what contradicts itself is Nothing. However correct this may be, it is at the same time incorrect. Contradiction and Nothing are at all events distinct from one another. Contradiction is concrete, it


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 at least has a content, it at least contains things which contradict themselves; it at least gives expression to them, it declares what it is a contradiction of: Nothing, on the contrary, does not express anything at all, it is devoid of content, it is the absolutely empty. This concrete quality of the one and the absolutely abstract quality of the other constitute a very important difference. Further, Nothing is in no sense contradiction. Nothing does not contradict itself, it is identical with itself; it accordingly fulfils perfectly the conditions of the logical proposition that a thing should not contradict itself—or if this proposition is expressed thus, Nothing ought to contradict itself, this is an ought which has no result, for Nothing does not do what it ought, that is, it does not contradict itself. If, however, it is put in the way of a thesis thus—Nothing which exists contradicts itself, then it is plainly correct, for the subject of this proposition is a Nothing which at the same time is, but Nothing itself as such is merely simple, the one characteristic which is equivalent to itself, which does not contradict itself.

Thus, the cancelling or solution of the contradiction in Nothing, as given by the Understanding, moves in vacuo, or, more accurately, in contradiction itself, which in virtue of a solution of this kind declares itself in fact to be still in existence, to be unsolved. The reason why the contradiction is still uncancelled is just that the content, the contingent, is first posited only in its negation in itself, and not yet in the affirmation which must be contained in this cancelling since it is not abstract Nothing. Even the contingent is certainly, to begin with, as it presents itself to the ordinary thought, an affirmative. It represents definite Being, existence; it is the world, affirmation, Reality, or however you like to term it, and it is this enough and to spare; but as such it is not yet posited in its solution, not given in the explication of its content and substance, and it is just this content which is meant to lead to its truth, namely, the


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. It is the contingent itself in which, as was said, the finitude, the limitation of the world has been indicated in order that it may itself directly point to its solution, that is, in accordance with the negative side already indicated. And further, the analysis or resolution of this contingent which is posited as already resolved in the contradiction, is seen to be the affirmative which is contained in it. This resolution has been already referred to. It was got and adopted from the idea formed by the human mind as representing the transition of Spirit from the contingent to the Absolutely-necessary, which in accordance with this would itself be this very affirmative, the resolution of that first and merely negative resolution. So, too, to indicate the speculative element in this final and most inner point would simply mean to put in a completely connected form the thoughts which are already contained in the conception we are dealing with, namely, in that first resolution. The Understanding which conceived of it merely as contradiction which resolves itself into Nothing, takes up only one of the two moments contained in it, and leaves the other alone.

As a matter of fact the concrete result in its unfolded shape, that is, its speculative form, has been already brought under our notice, and that long ago, namely, in the definition which was given of absolute necessity. In that connection, however, an external kind of reflection and style of argument was employed in reference to the moments which belong to this necessity or from which it results. What we have got to do here is merely to call attention to those moments which are found in what we have seen to be the contradiction which is the resolution of the contingent. In absolute necessity what we found first of all was the moment of mediation, and, to begin with, of mediation through an Other. The analysis of the contingent directly shows that the moments of this mediation are Being in general, or material existence, and


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 the negation of this, whereby it is degraded to the state of something which has a semblance of Being, something which is virtually a nullity. Each moment is not isolated and taken by itself, but is thought of as attaching to the one characteristic, namely, to the contingent, and as existing purely in relation to the Other, as having any meaning only in this relation. This one characteristic, which holds them together, is what mediates them. In it, it is true, the one exists by means of the other; but then each can exist for itself outside of their connection, and each ought, in fact, to exist for itself, Being for itself and negation for itself. If, however, we call the former Being as it appears in the more concrete shape in which we have it here, namely, as material existence, we practically grant that this material existence is not for itself, is not absolute or eternal, but is, on the contrary, virtually a nullity which has indeed a Being, but not an independent Being, a Being-for-self, for it is just this Being possessed by it which is characterised as something contingent. Since, accordingly, in the case of contingency each of the two characteristics exists only in relation to the other, this mediation between them appears to be contingent itself, to be merely isolated, and to be found only in this particular place. The unsatisfactory thing is that the characteristics can be taken for themselves, that is to say, as they themselves are as such, and as related only to themselves, and therefore immediately and thus as not mediated in themselves. Mediation is consequently something which happens to them in a merely outward way, and is itself contingent; that is, the peculiar inner necessity of contingency is not demonstrated.

This reflection consequently leads up to the necessity of the starting-point in itself which we took as something given, as a starting-point in fact. It leads up not to the transition from the contingent to the necessary, but to the transition which is implicitly contained in the contingent itself, to the transition from one of each of the


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 moments which constitute the contingent, to its Other. This would bring us back to the analysis of the first abstract, logical moments, and it is sufficient here to regard contingency as the act of transition in itself, as its cancelling of itself or annulling of itself, as this is ordinarily conceived of.

In the resolution of contingency just described, there is at the same time indicated the second moment, that of absolute necessity, that is, the moment of mediation with self. The moments of contingency are, to begin with, in a relation of antithesis to each other, and each is posited as mediated by its antithesis or Other. In the unity of the two, however, each is something negated, and their difference is consequently done away with, and although we still speak of one of the two, it is no longer related to something different from it, but to itself; we have thus mediation with self.

The speculative way of looking at this accordingly implies that the contingent is known in itself in so far as it is resolved into its parts, and this resolution at first takes the form of an external analysis of this characteristic. It is, however, not merely this, but is really the resolution of that characteristic in itself. The contingent is by its very nature that which resolves itself, disintegrates itself, it is transition in itself. But, in the second place, this resolution is not the abstraction of Nothing, but is rather affirmation within the resolution, that affirmation which we call absolute necessity. It is thus that we form a philosophical conception of this transition. The result is shown to be immanent in the contingent, i.e., it is the very nature of the contingent to revert back to its truth, and the elevation of our spirit to God—in so far as we have provisionally no further definition of God than the description of Him as Absolute Being, or because we for the present rest satisfied with it—is the course of development followed by this movement of the Thing or true fact. It is this Thing or true fact in-and-for-itself which


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 is the impelling power in us, and which gives the impulse to this movement.

It has been already remarked that for the consciousness to which the determinations of thought do not present themselves in this pure speculative form, and consequently not in their self-solution and self-movement, but which represents them to itself by general ideas, the transition is rendered more easy by the fact that the thing from which we start, namely, the contingent, already means something which resolves itself, which passes over into its Other. In this way the connection between that from which the start is made and the point ultimately reached, is made absolutely clear. This starting-point is consequently the one which is most advantageous for consciousness, and the one which is most in accordance with an end. It is the instinct of thought which implicitly makes this transition, which is the essential fact or Thing, but at the same time this instinct brings it into consciousness in the form of a determination of thought, of such a kind that it appears easy for it to represent it as a general idea merely, that is, in the form of abstract identity. When the world, in fact, is defined as the contingent, this means that reference is made to its Not-Being, while it is hinted that its truth is its Other or antithesis.

The transition is rendered intelligible by the fact that it is not only implicitly contained in the starting-point, but that this latter directly suggests the transition, that is, this characteristic is also posited and is therefore in it. In this way its determinate existence is something given for consciousness, which makes use of ordinary ideas just in so far as it has to do with immediate existence, which is here a determination or quality of thought. Equally intelligible is the result, the Absolutely-necessary; it contains mediation, and it is just this understanding of the connection in general which passes for being the easiest possible, a connection which


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 in a finite way is taken as the connection of the one with an Other, but which, on the other hand, carries its corrective with it in so far as this connection issues in an insufficient end. A connection of this kind, owing to the fact that the law which governs it constantly requires that it should repeat itself in the matter which composes it, always lead up to an Other, that is, to a negative, while the affirmative which reappears in this act of development is simply something which issues from itself, and thus the one as well as the Other finds no rest, and no satisfaction. The Absolutely-necessary, again, since regarded from one point of view it itself produces that connection, is something which can also break off the connection, bring back into itself this going out of itself and secure the final result. The Absolutely-necessary is, because it is; thus that Other and the act of going out towards that Other are set aside, and by this unconscious inconsequence satisfaction is secured.


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 SIXTEENTH LECTURE

foregoing Lectures have dealt with the dialectical element, with the absolute fluidity, of the characteristics that enter into the movement which represents this first form of the elevation of the spirit to God. We have now further to deal with the result in itself as defined in accordance with the standpoint adopted.

This result is the absolutely necessary Essence. The meaning of a result is known to consist simply in this, that in it the determination of the mediation, and consequently of the result, has been absorbed in something higher. The mediation was the self-annulling of the mediation. Essence means what is as yet absolutely abstract self-identity; it is not subject, and still less is it Spirit. The entire determination is found in absolute necessity, which in its character as Being is at the same time what has immediate Being, and which, as a matter of fact, implicitly determines itself as subject, but at first in the purely superficial form of something having Being, in the form of the Absolutely-necessary.

The fact that this determination is not adequate to express our idea of God is a defect which we may in the meantime leave alone, inasmuch as it has been already indicated that the other proofs bring with them further and more concrete determinations. There are, however, religious and philosophical systems whose defectiveness consists just in this, that they have not got beyond the characteristic of absolute necessity. The consideration of the more concrete forms in which this principle has embodied itself in religion, belongs to the philosophy of religion and to the history of religion. Regarding the


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 subject in this aspect, it may here be merely remarked that in general those religions which have this determinateness as their basis have, so far as the inner logical development of concrete Spirit is concerned, richer and more varied elements than any which the abstract principle at first brings with it. In the sphere of phenomena and in consciousness the other moments of the Idea in its full and completed form, are superadded in a way which is inconsistent with that abstract principle. It is, however, essential to find out whether these additions in the way of definite form belong merely to imagination, and whether the concrete in its inner nature does not get beyond that abstraction—so that, as in the Oriental and particularly in the Indian mythology, the infinite realm of divine persons who are brought in not only as forces in general, but as self-conscious, willing figures, continues to be devoid of Spirit—or whether, on the other hand, spite of that one necessity, the higher spiritual principle emerges in these persons, and whether, in consequence, spiritual freedom comes to view in their worshippers. Thus in the religion of the Greeks we see absolute necessity in the form of Fate occupying the place of what is supreme and ultimate, and it is only in subordination to this necessity that we have the joyous company of the concrete and living Gods. These are also conceived of as spiritual and conscious, and in the above-mentioned and in other mythologies are multiplied so as to make a still larger crowd of heroes, nymphs of the sea, of the rivers, and so on, muses, fauns, &c., and are connected with the ordinary external life of the world and its contingent things, partly as chorus and accompaniment in the form of a further particularisation of one of the divine supreme deities, partly as figures of minor importance. Here necessity constitutes the abstract force which is above all the particular spiritual, moral, and natural forces. These latter, however, partly possess the character of non-spiritual, merely natural force, which remains completely under the power of necessity, while


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 their personalities are merely personifications; and yet, although they may not exactly deserve to be called persons, they also partly contain the higher characteristic of subjective inherent freedom. In this way they occupy a position above that of their mistress, namely, necessity, to which only the limited element in this deeper principle is subordinate, a principle which has elsewhere to await its purification from this finitude in the region of which it at first appears, and has to manifest itself independently in its infinite freedom.

The logical working out of the category of absolute necessity is to be looked for in systems which start from abstract thoughts. This application in detail of the category has reference to the relation between this principle and the manifoldness of the natural and spiritual world. If absolute necessity thus forms the basis as representing what is alone true and truly real, in what relation do material things stand to it? These things are not only natural things, but also include Spirit, the spiritual individuality with all its conceptions, interests, and aims. This relation has, however, been already defined in connection with the principle referred to. They are contingent things. Further, they are distinct from absolute necessity itself; but they have no independent Being as against it, and neither has it, consequently, as against them. There is only one Being, and this belongs to necessity, and things by their very nature form part of it. What we have defined as absolute necessity has to be more definitely hypostatised in the form of universal Being or Substance, while, in its character as a result, it is a self-mediated unity in virtue of the abrogation of mediation. It is thus simple Being, and is what alone represents the subsisting element of things. When our attention was previously called to necessity in the form of Greek Fate, it was thought of as characterless or indeterminate force; but Being itself has already come down from the abstraction referred to, to the level of the things


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 above which it ought to be. Still, if Essence or Substance itself were merely an abstraction, things would have an independent existence of concrete individuality outside of it. It must at the same time be characterised as the force of these things, the negative principle which makes its validity felt in them, and by means of which they represent what is perishing and transitory and has merely a phenomenal existence. We have seen how this negative element represents the peculiar nature of contingent things. They have thus this force within themselves, and do not represent manifestation in general, but the manifestation of necessity. This necessity contains things, or rather it contains them in their stage of mediation. It is not, however, mediated by something other than itself, but it is the direct mediation of itself with itself. It is the variable element or alternation of its absolute unity whereby it determines itself as mediation, that is, as external necessity, a relation of an Other to an Other, that is, whereby it spreads itself out into infinite multiplicity, into the absolutely conditioned world, but in such a way that it degrades external mediation, the contingent world to the condition of a world of appearance, and in this nullity comes into harmony with itself, posits itself as equal to itself, and does this in the world as representing its force. Everything is thus included in it, and it is immediately present in everything. It is the Being, as it also is the changeable and variable element of the world.

The determination of necessity as unfolded in the philosophical conception of it, is, speaking generally, the standpoint which we are in the habit of calling Pantheism, and sometimes in a more developed and definite form, sometimes in a more superficial form, it is what expresses the relation indicated. The very fact of the interest which this name has again awakened in modern times, and still more the interest of the principle itself, render it necessary that we should direct our attention to it.


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 The misunderstanding which prevails with regard to Pantheism ought not to be allowed to pass without being mentioned and corrected; and after that we shall have to consider in this connection the place of the principle in the higher totality, in the true Idea of God. Since at a previous stage the consideration of the religious form taken by the principle was dispensed with, we may, by way of bringing a picture of it before the mind, take the Hindu religion as representing Pantheism in its most developed form. With this development there is bound up at the same time the fact that the absolute Substance, the sole and only One, is represented in the form of thought as distinguished from the accidental world, as existing. Religion in itself essentially involves the relation of Man to God, and still less when it appears in the form of Pantheism does it leave the one Essence in that condition of objectivity in which metaphysic imagines it has left it as an object while preserving its special character. We have to call attention first of all to the remarkable character of this attempt to bring Substance under the conditions of subjectivity. Self-conscious thought does not only make that abstraction of Substance, but is the very act of abstraction itself. It is just that simple unity as existing for itself which is called Substance. This thought is thus conceived of as the force which creates and preserves the world, and which also alters and changes its existence as this appears in particular forms. This thought is termed Brahma. It exists as the natural self-consciousness of the Brahmans, and as the self-consciousness of others who put under restraint and kill their consciousness in its manifold forms, their sensations, their material and spiritual interests, and all the active life connected with them, and reduce it to the perfect simplicity and emptiness of that substantial unity. Thus this thought, this abstraction of men in themselves, is held to be the force of the world. The universal force takes particular forms in gods, who are nevertheless


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 transitory and temporary; or, what comes to the same thing, all life, whether in the form of spiritual or natural individuality, is torn away from the finitude of its perfectly conditioned connection—all understanding in this latter being destroyed—and is elevated into the form of divine existence.

As we were reminded, the principle of individualisation appears in this Pantheism in its several religious shapes, in a form inconsistent with the force of substantial unity. Individuality, it is true, does not exactly get the length of being personality, but the force unfolds itself in a sufficiently wild way as an illogical transition into its opposite. We find ourselves in a region of unbridled madness in which the present in its most ordinary form is directly elevated to the rank of something divine, and Substance is conceived of as existing in finite shapes, while the shapes assumed have a volatile character and directly melt away.

The Oriental theory of the universe is in general represented by this idea of sublimity which puts all individualisation into special shapes, and infinitely extends all particular forms of existence and particular interests. It beholds the One in all things, and consequently clothes this purely abstract One in all the glory and splendour of the natural and spiritual universe. The souls of the Eastern Poets dive into this ocean and drown in it all the necessities, the aims, the cares of this petty circumscribed life, and revel in the enjoyment of this freedom, upon which they lavish by way of ornament and adornment all the beauty of the world.

It will be already clear from this picture, and this is a point upon which I have elsewhere explained my views, that the expression Pantheism, or rather the German expression in which it appears in a somewhat transposed form, that God is the One and All, or everything—τὸ ἓν καὶ πᾶν—leads to the false idea that in pantheistic religion or in philosophy, everything (Alles),


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 that is, every existing thing in its finitude and particularity, is held to be possessed of Being as God or as a god, and that the finite is deified as having Being. It could only be a narrow and ordinary or rather a scholastic kind of mind which would expect this to be the case, and which, being perfectly unconcerned about what actually is, sticks to one category, and to the category, in fact, of finite particularisation, and accordingly conceives of the manifoldness which it finds mentioned, as a permanent, existing, substantial particularisation. There can be no mistake but that the essential and Christian definition of freedom or individuality, which as free is infinite in itself and is personality, has misled the Understanding into conceiving of the particularisation of finitude under the category of an existing unchangeable atom, and into overlooking the moment of the negative which is involved in force and in the general system to which it belongs. It imagines Pantheism as saying that all, that is, all things in their existing isolation, are God, since it takes the πᾶν in this definite category as referring to all and every individual thing. Such an absurd idea has never come into anybody’s head outside of the ranks of these opponents of Pantheism. This latter represents a view which is, on the contrary, quite the opposite of that which they associate with it. The finite, the contingent is not something which subsists for itself. In the affirmative sense it is only a manifestation, a revelation of the One, only an appearance of it which is itself merely contingency. The fact is that it is the negative aspect, the disappearance in the one force, the ideality of what has Being as a momentary standpoint in the force, which is the predominant aspect. In opposition to this the Understanding holds that these things exist for themselves and have their essence in themselves, and are thus in and in accordance with this finite essentiality, supposed to be divine or even to be God. They cannot free themselves from the absoluteness of their finitude,


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 and this finitude is not thought of as something which disappears and is absorbed in this unity with the Divine, but is still preserved by them in it as existing. On the other hand, since the finite is, as they say, robbed of its infinitude by Pantheism, the finite has in consequence no longer any Being at all.

It is preferable to use the expression, “the philosophical systems of substantiality,” and not to speak of systems of Pantheism, because of the false idea associated with this term. We may take the Eleatic system in general as representing these in ancient times, and the Spinozistic as their modern representative. These systems of substantiality are, as we have seen, more logical than the religions corresponding to them, since they keep within the sphere of metaphysical abstraction. The one aspect of the defect which attaches to them is represented by the one-sidedness referred to as existing in the idea formed by the Understanding of the course taken by the spirit’s elevation to God. That is to say, they start from actual existence, treat it as a nullity, and recognise the Absolute One as the truth of this existence. They start with a presupposition, they negate it in the absolute unity, but they don’t get out of this unity back to the presupposition. They don’t think of the world, which is considered to be merely comprised within an abstraction of contingency, of the many and so on, as produced out of Substance. Everything passes into this unity as into a kind of eternal night, while this unity is not characterised as a principle which moves itself to its manifestation, or produces it, “as the unmoved which moves,” according to the profound expression of Aristotle.

(a.) In these systems the Absolute, or God, is defined as the One, Being, the Being in all existence, the absolute Substance, the Essence which is necessary not through an Other, but in-and-for-itself, the Causa Sui, the cause of itself, and consequently its own effect, that is, the mediation which cancels itself. The unity implied in


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 this latter characteristic belongs to an infinitely deeper and more developed form of thought than the abstract unity of Being, or the One. This conception has been sufficiently explained. Causa Sui is a very striking expression for that unity, and we may accordingly give some further attention to its elucidation. The relation of cause and effect belongs to the moment of mediation through an Other already referred to, and which we saw in necessity, and is its definite form. Anything is completely mediated by an Other in so far as this Other is its cause. This is the original thing or fact as absolutely immediate and independent; the effect, on the other hand, is what is posited merely, dependent, and so forth. In the antithesis of Being and Nothing, One and Many, and so on, the characteristics are found existing in such a way as to imply that they are matched with each other in their relation, and yet that they have, as unrelated, a valid independent existence besides. The Positive, the Whole, and so on, is, it is true, related to the Negative, to the parts, and this relation forms part of its essential meaning; but the Positive as well as the Negative, the Whole, the parts, and so on, have in addition an independent existence outside of this relation. But cause and effect have a meaning simply and solely in virtue of their relation. The meaning of the cause does not extend beyond the fact that it has an effect. The stone which falls has the effect of producing an impression on the object upon which it falls. Looked at apart from this effect which it has as a heavy body, it is physically separate and distinct from other equally heavy bodies. Or, to put it otherwise, since it is a cause while it continues to produce this impression, if we, for example, imagine its effect to be transitory, then when it strikes against another body it ceases so far to be a cause, and outside of this relation it is just a stone, which it was before. This idea haunts the popular mind chiefly in so far as it characterises the thing as the


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 original fact and as continuing to exist outside of that effect it produces. Apart from that effect which it has produced, the stone is undoubtedly a stone, only it is not a cause. It is a cause only in connection with its effect, or, to introduce the note of time, during its effect.

Cause and effect are thus, speaking generally, inseparable. Each has meaning and existence only in so far as it stands in this relation to the other, and yet they are supposed to be absolutely different. We cling with equal firmness to the idea that the cause is not the effect and the effect is not the cause, and the Understanding holds obstinately to this fact of the independent being of these two categories and of the absence of relation between them.

When, however, we have come to see that the cause is inseparable from the effect, and that it has any meaning only as being in the latter, then it follows that the cause itself is mediated by the effect; it is only in and through the effect that it is cause. This, however, means nothing more than that the cause is the cause of itself, and not of an Other. For this which is supposed to be an Other is of such a kind that the cause is first a cause in it, and therefore in it simply reaches itself, and in it affects only itself.

Jacobi has some reflections on this Spinozistic category, the Causa Sui (“Letters on the Doctrine of Spinoza,” 2nd ed., p. 416), and I refer to his criticisms upon it just because they afford us an example of how Jacobi, the pioneer of the party of immediate knowledge or faith, who is so much given to rejecting the Understanding in his consideration of thought, does not get beyond the mere Understanding. I pass over what he says in the passage referred to regarding the distinction between the category of ground and consequence, and that of cause and effect, and the fact that in his later controversial essays he imagines he has found in this difference a true description and definition of the nature of God. I merely indicate


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 the more immediate conclusion referred to by him, namely, that from the interchange of the two “it may be successfully inferred that things can originate without originating, and alter without undergoing alteration, and can be before and after each other without being before and after.” Such conclusions are too absurd to require any further comment. The contradiction to which the Understanding reduces a principle is an ultimate one; it is simply the limit of the horizon of thought beyond which it is not possible to go, but in presence of which we must turn back. We have, however, seen how the solution of this contradiction is reached, and we shall apply it to the contradiction in the form in which it here appears and is here stated, or rather we shall simply briefly indicate the estimate to be formed of the above assertion. The conclusion referred to, that things may originate without originating, and alter without undergoing alteration, is manifestly absurd. We can see that it expresses the idea of self-mediation through an Other, of mediation as self-annulling mediation, but likewise that this mediation is directly abandoned. The abstract expression, Things, does its part in bringing the finite before the mind. The finite is a form of limited Being to which only one of two opposite qualities attaches, and which does not remain with itself in the Other, but simply perishes. But then the Infinite is this mediation with self through the Other, and without repeating the exposition of this conception, we may take an example from the sphere of natural things without going at all to that of spiritual existence, namely, life as a whole. What is well known to us as its self-preservation is “successfully” expressed in terms of thought as the infinite relation in virtue of which the living individual of whose process of self-preservation we alone speak here, without paying attention to its other characteristics, continually produces itself in its existence. This existence is not identical Being, Being in a state of repose, but, on the contrary, represents