Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/293

 in its living form can be grasped and presented by thought alone.

That representation, then, is not without an element of inconsistency, but the essential outlines of the Idea are contained in it, namely, that man, since he is implicitly this unity, and because he is Spirit, comes out of the natural, out of this Potentiality into differentiation, and that the act of judgment, the judicial trial in reference to himself and the natural, must come in.

It is thus that he comes to know of God and of goodness. If he has a knowledge of them, he has them as the object of his consciousness; if he has them as the object of his consciousness, then the individual distinguishes himself from them.

Consciousness contains a double element within itself, namely, this division or dualism. Now it is true that it is sometimes said that this ought not to have been. But it is involved in the conception of man that he should reach rational knowledge, or, in other words, it is the very nature of Spirit to become that consciousness. In so far as the division and reflection represent freedom, implying that man has a choice between the two sides of the antithesis, or stands as lord over Good and Evil, we have a point of view that ought not to exist, that must be absorbed in something higher. It is not, however, one which should not make its appearance at all, the truth rather being that this standpoint of dualism, in conformity with its own nature, terminates in reconciliation. And both aspects are included in the narrative, namely, that reflection, consciousness, freedom, contain evil, wickedness within themselves—that which ought not to be—but that they likewise contain the principle, the source of healing, namely, freedom.

The one aspect of the truth, namely, that the standpoint of reflection is not to be permanent, is directly implied in the statement that a crime has been committed, denoting something which is not to be, not to remain,