Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/16

 character of separateness or mutual exclusion, and because the moments, being independent and objective in their particularity, are looked upon theoretically.

The further question which now presents itself is, What are the forms, the shapes in which this independence appears? We are actually in such a world, consciousness finds itself in an existing world, of such a mutually exclusive character—in a world of sense, and thus has to deal with a world of many-coloured manifoldness. Taking it as a whole, it is thus just “these,” these individual things; that is the fundamental determination here. We call “these,” Things, and this is the more precise characteristic we assign to the Objective, and by which we distinguish it from Spirit. In a similar way we have in inner life to do with manifold forces, spiritual distinctions and experiences, which the understanding in like manner isolates;—as, for example, this inclination, that passion, this power of memory, that power of judgment, &c. In thinking, too, we have determinations each of which exists for itself, such as positive, negative, being, not-being; this, for our consciousness, which takes things in their sensuous aspect, for our understanding, is independence. In this way we have a view or theory of the universe which is of a prosaic character, because the independence has the form of what is a thing, of forces, faculties of the mind, &c., and consequently its form is abstract. The thought is not Reason here, but Understanding, and is present in that form. But when we so regard the world, what we have is the reflection of understanding, which appears much later, and cannot as yet exist here. Not until prose, not until thinking, has permeated all relations, so that man everywhere assumes the attitude of one who thinks abstractly, does he speak of external things. The thinking in question here is, on the contrary, this Substance only; it is merely this self-containedness or being at home with self; it is not as yet brought into exercise, not applied