Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/105

 is negative relation of itself to itself, as power is, but in relation to an Other. This Other is capable, too, of appearing as independent, but it is involved in this that the independence is only a semblance of independence, or else it is of such a kind that its existence, its embodiment, is merely a negative relatively to the power of subjectivity, so that this last is what is dominant. Absolute power does not hold sway; where there is the exercise of ruling authority, the Other is swallowed up. Here the latter abides, but obeys, serves as a means.

The unfolding of these moments has now to be further considered. This process is of such a kind that it must arrest itself within certain limits, and for this reason especially, that we are as yet only in the transition to subjectivity; the latter does not appear in a free and truthful form; there is still an intermixture here of substantial unity and subjectivity. On the one hand, subjectivity does indeed unite everything; on the other hand, however, since it is as yet immature, it leaves the Other outside, and this intermixture has therefore the defect of that with which it is still entangled, namely, the religion of nature. In reference to the nature of the form in which Spirit has its self-consciousness concerning itself as the object of its consciousness, the stage now before us presents itself as the transition from the earlier forms to the higher stage of religion. Subjectivity does not as yet exist on its own account or for itself, and is consequently not yet free, but it is the middle point between substance and free subjectivity. This stage is therefore full of inconsistencies, and it is the problem of subjectivity to purify itself. This is the stage of Mystery or enigma.

In this fermenting process all the moments present themselves. For this reason the consideration of this standpoint of thought possesses especial interest, because both stages, the preceding one of the religion of nature and the following one of free subjectivity, appear here in