Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/201

 a way that the one is determined as the other of the other. And here, too, finiteness remains, and just for this reason, that the infinite which stands over against it is itself a finite, and a finite in fact which is posited as the other of the first or finite. Only the true infinite, which posits itself as finite, overlaps itself so to speak as its Other, and remains in it, because it is its own other in unity with itself. But if the one, the infinite, be only defined as the not-many, not-finite, it remains on the other side beyond the many and the finite; and thus the many of the finite itself is likewise left standing on its own account without being able to attain to its something beyond.

It is now time to inquire whether this antithesis has truth in it, that is to say, whether these two sides drop apart, and exist as mutually exclusive. With regard to this it has been said already that when we posit the finite as finite, we are above and beyond it. In the limitation we have a limit but only inasmuch as we are above and beyond it, it is no longer the affirmative. Just because we are at it, conscious of it, we are no longer at it.

The finite relates itself to the infinite; each is exclusive with regard to the other. Considered more closely, the finite is regarded as that which is limited, its limit being the infinite.

Under the first form one Particular gave limits to an other; here the finite has its limit in the infinite itself. Now if the finite is limited by the infinite and stands on one side, the infinite itself is something limited too; it has its boundary in the finite; it is that which the finite is not; it has something which is on the yonder side of it and is thus finite, limited. Thus we have, instead of the Highest, something which is a Finite. We have not what we desire, we have in this infinite only a finite. Or if it be said, on the other hand, that the infinite is not limited, then the finite, too, is not