Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/274

 the same distinction which is, in fact, involved in the idea of God.

The two aspects of Spirit—of Spirit in its objectivity, when it is pre-eminently known as God, and of Spirit in its subjectivity,—constitute the reality of the absolute notion or conception of God, who, as the absolute unity of these His two moments, is Absolute Spirit. The determinate character of any one of these aspects corresponds with the other aspect; it is the all-pervading universal form in which the Idea is found, and which again constitutes one stage in the totality of its development.

As regards these stages of realisation, the following general distinction has already been established in what has gone before, namely, that according to the one form of reality, Spirit is confined to a certain specific form in which its Being and self-consciousness appear, while according to the other, again, it is its absolute reality, in which it has the developed content of the Idea of Spirit as its object. This form of reality is the true religion.

In accordance with this distinction, definite religion will in the following section be treated of first of all.