Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/127

 which ought to be, has come into existence. In gravitation there is always an element of mutual exclusion still remaining, the different points repel one another, and this one point, namely, sensation—the being in self—does not come forward into existence. But the whole force and life of Nature is ever pressing on towards sensation and towards Spirit. While, however, in this progress Spirit appears as necessary through Nature, and as mediated through Nature, yet this mediation is of such a kind that it at once abrogates itself. What proceeds out of the mediation shows itself as the foundation and the truth of that out of which it has proceeded. To philosophical knowledge the advance is a stream going in opposite directions, leading forward to what is Other than itself, but at the same time working backwards in such a way that that which appears as the last, as founded on what precedes, shows itself rather to be the first—the foundation.

b. Spirit itself is, to begin with, immediate; it is in the process of coming to itself that it becomes for itself, or self-conscious, and it is its very life to become for itself, or self-conscious, by means of itself. In this process it is essential to distinguish between two aspects presented by Spirit; first, what Spirit is in and for itself, and, secondly, its finiteness. First of all, Spirit is without relation, ideal, enclosed in the Idea; in its second aspect, Spirit in its finiteness is consciousness, and since what is Other than itself exists for it, stands in an attitude of relation. Nature is only appearance; it is when we think and reflect that Nature is for us Idea; therefore this which is its own transfiguration, that is, Spirit, is something found outside of it. The essential nature of Spirit consists, on the contrary, in this, that the Idea lies in Spirit itself, and that the Absolute, that which is true in and for itself, exists for Spirit. In its immediacy Spirit is still finite, and this finiteness is characterised by the fact that in the first place what it is in and for itself, or