Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/164

 posited in their mutual relations, but are merely taken in an abstract simple self-reference. In so far certainly as the content already has manifold relations in itself, but a relation which is only external, there is posited thereby an external identity. When we say a thing is this, then that, and then so and so, these determinations have to begin with the form of contingency.

Or if idea contain relations which are nearer to thought, as for instance, that God created the world, the relation is still grasped by idea in the form of contingency and externality. Thus, in the idea of the creation, God remains on the one side apart, and the world on the other, but the connection of the two sides is not posited under the form of necessity. This connection is either expressed according to the analogies of natural life and natural events, or, if it be designated as creation, it is treated as a connection to be regarded as quite peculiar and incomprehensible. If, however, the word “Activity” be used as expressive of that which produced the world, it is indeed a more abstract term, but it is not as yet the notion. The essential content stands fast by itself in the form of simple universality, in which it lies concealed and undeveloped, and its transition by its own act into another, its identity with that other, has not yet been reached; it is merely identical with itself. The bond of necessity and the unity of their difference are wanting to the individual points.

As soon, therefore, as idea or ordinary thought attempts to conceive an essential connection, it leaves the connection in the form of contingency, and does not go on to its true essence and to its eternal interpenetrative unity. Thus in idea the thought of providence and the movements of history are embraced in and grounded on the eternal decree of God. But here the connection is at once transplanted into a sphere where it is said to be incomprehensible and inscrutable for us. The thought of the universal, therefore, does not become