Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/139

 to be the infinite, does not yet exist. This inherently existing substantiality is accordingly Brahma, and the independently existing finite is represented by the many gods. The third position is that in which the finite is posited as identical with substantiality, so that its sphere is of similar extent to that of the latter, and is pure universal form, as substantiality itself is. This is God conceived of as The Good.

Spiritual subjectivity, the conception at which we have now arrived, is the absolutely free power of self-determination, so that this is nothing else than the Notion, and has no content but the Notion; and in this self-determination there is nothing beyond the fact that it contains itself. This self-determination, this content, is accordingly as universal, as infinite, as the Power itself. This universal Power, which now shows itself active in the form of self-determination, we may call Wisdom. In so far as we have to do with spiritual subjectivity we have to do with self-determination, with an end, and these are as universal as the Power, and are thus wise ends. Determination in accordance with an end is directly involved in the conception of free subjectivity. Action which is in accordance with an end is inner self-determination, i.e., it is determination by means of freedom, by means of the subject, for there is nothing within but just the subject itself.

This self-determination maintains itself in external existence, natural being has no longer any worth in its immediacy, it belongs to the Power, is a transparent medium for it, and has no value for itself. In so far as it takes on an external form—and it must externalise itself, subjectivity must give itself reality—it is simply free self-determination which maintains itself in realising itself, in external existence, in the natural sphere. In the case of action which is in conformity with an end, nothing comes out of it unless what is already there. Immediate existence, on the other hand, is bereft of power,