Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/285

 in the particular form in which it appears in religion, is first of all natural religion. What next takes place is that reflection enters, Spirit becomes free within itself, becomes the subjective generally, which notwithstanding issues out of the unity of nature, and is still related to it. This is conditioned freedom. The third stage is represented by the willing of Spirit to determine itself within itself, and this accordingly appears in the form of an end, of adaptation to an end on its own account. This, too, is at first still finite and limited. Such are the fundamental determinations, which are the moments or stages of the development of the Notion, and at the same time of concrete development.

These stages may be compared to those of the ages of man. The child is still in the primal immediate unity of the will with nature, as representing both his own nature and the nature which surrounds him. The second stage, adolescence, when individuality is in process of becoming independent, is the living spirituality, the vitality of Spirit, which, while setting no end before it as yet, moves forward, has aspirations, and takes an interest in everything which comes in its way. The third is the age of manhood; this is the period of work for a particular end, to which the man makes himself subservient, to which he devotes his energies. Finally, old age might be considered as a last stage, which having the Universal before it as an end, and recognising this end, has turned back from the particular interests of life and work to the universal aim, the absolute final end, and has, as it were, gathered itself together out of the wide and manifold interests of actual outward existence and concentrated itself in the infinite depths of its inner life. Such are the determinations which follow in a logical manner from the nature of the Notion. At the close it will become apparent that even the original immediacy does not exist as immediacy, but is something posited. The child itself is something begotten.