Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/153

 advance of the finite to the Infinite or of the accidental to Necessity, the distinction, so far as the advance is concerned, does not seem at all to be an essential one. As a matter of fact, both have the same fundamental determination, so that, from one point of view, this is correct; but if we regard the matter from another point of view, the difference or distinction is more concrete than that of the earlier form of the process. That is to say, if we begin from the finite, then the matter stands thus; but the first beginning is that it has real worth, that it exists as Being, or, in other words, we take it to begin with in an affirmative, positive form. Its end is indeed involved in it, but at the same time it still possesses immediate Being. “Accidental” already suggests something more concrete, for what is accidental can either be or not be. The Real is accidental, for it may quite as well be possibility, the Being of which has the value of Not-Being. Thus there is posited in the accidental the negation of itself, and it is accordingly a transition from Being into Nothing. Like the finite, it is inherently negative; but since it is also Not-Being, so too is it the transition from Not-Being to Being. The characteristic or determination of contingency is thus much richer and more concrete than that of the finite. The truth of contingency is necessity, and this is determinate existence, which has arisen by mediation with itself through its NotBeing. Reality is a definite form of existence of this sort, in the case of which the process is shut in within itself, and which by means of itself comes into harmony with itself.

In connection with Necessity we have, however, to make the following distinctions:—

1. External necessity is in a peculiar sense contingent necessity. When an effect is dependent on causes, then it is necessary; when one or another set of circumstances concurs, then one or another result must follow. Only circumstances which occasion this are immediate; and since, regarded from this standpoint, immediate Being has