Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/197

. We are mutually exclusive, and are independent in relation to each other. Such I am in virtue of my having sensuous experience; all that is living is thus exclusive. In hearing and seeing I have only what is individual before me, and in my practical relation to things I have always to do with what is only single or individual; the objects which give me satisfaction are in like manner individual. This is the standpoint of natural Being, of natural existence. According to this I exist in manifold relations, in external Being of a manifold kind, in the region of experiences, needs, practical and theoretical relations, all of which, according to their content, are limited and dependent, finite, in short. The annulling of what is finite is already found to have its place within this finiteness; every impulse as subjective relates itself to what is Other than itself, is finite; but in satisfying itself it annuls this relation, this finite character. This return into its affirmation is its satisfaction. On the other hand, however, it remains finite, for the satisfied impulse reawakens, and the annulling of the negation again becomes a sense of need. Satisfaction, this infinitely recurring feeling, is only an infinitude of form, and therefore is not a truly concrete infinitude. The content remains finite, and thus the satisfaction remains finite too, just as the need as such involves defect and is finite. According to the former side, however, the need annuls its finiteness when it satisfies itself. The satisfaction of hunger is an annulling of the separation between me and my object, it is an annulling of finiteness, yet only a formal annulling.

Nature is not complete and independent, does not exist in and for itself; on the contrary, it is just this fact of its being something which is not self-posited which constitutes its finiteness. Our sensuous consciousness, too, in so far as we have to do in it with singulars or particulars, belongs to this natural finiteness, and this latter has to manifest itself. The finite is determined as