Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/128

 essentially, is distinguished from that which is present to its consciousness. But its essential nature and its infinitude consist in this, that its consciousness and its Idea absolutely correspond. This perfecting of Spirit, and this effacing of the differences of that relation, may be conceived of in accordance with the twofold aspect of its essential existence and of its actual consciousness. At first the two are distinguished; what it is essentially does not exist for consciousness, and this its essential existence still wears for Spirit an aspect of otherness or strangeness. But the two stand in a relation of reciprocity, so that the advance of the one is at the same time the perfecting of the other. In the “Phenomenology of Spirit,” Spirit is considered in its phenomenal existence as consciousness, and the necessity of its advance till it reaches the absolute standpoint is demonstrated. The forms assumed by Spirit, the stages which it produces, are there treated of as they present themselves in its consciousness. What, however, Spirit knows, what Spirit as consciousness is, is one thing; the necessary nature of that which Spirit knows, and which exists for Spirit, is another. The former, namely the fact that its world exists for Spirit, is, as the word implies, a mere fact of existence, and appears therefore as contingent. The latter, the necessity, namely, by which this world has arisen for it, does not exist for Spirit at this stage of consciousness. So far as Spirit is concerned it takes place secretly, it exists only for philosophical contemplation, and belongs to the development of that which Spirit is according to its notion or conception. In this development a stage is now reached where Spirit attains to absolute consciousness, at which rationality exists for it as a world; and while on the other hand as consciousness it develops itself towards a consciousness of the essential nature of the world, it is here the point is reached, where the two modes, which were at first different,