Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/178

 C.

DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT.

We have on the one side power pure and simple and abstract wisdom, and on the other a contingent end to be carried out. Both are united, and wisdom is unlimited; but for this reason it is indeterminate, and because of this the end as real is contingent or finite. The mediation of the two sides to concrete unity, which is of such a kind that the notion of wisdom is itself the content of its end, already constitutes the transition to a higher stage. The main determination here is expressed by the question, What is wisdom? what is the end? It is an end which is inadequate to the power.

(a.) The subjectivity which is inherently power has no connection with sense; the natural or immediate element is in it negated; it is only for Spirit, for Thought. This Power, which exists for itself, is essentially One. That which we have called reality, Nature, is only something posited, negated, and passes away into independent self-existent Being, where there is no Many, no One and the Other. Thus the One is purely exclusive, having no Other beside it, and not suffering anything alongside of it which might have independence. This One is the wisdom of The All; everything is posited by means of it, but is for it merely something external and accidental. This is the sublimity of the One, of this Power, and of Power which is wise. Since, on the other hand, it takes on the form of definite existence, namely, self-consciousness, and as Being exists for an Other, the end also is only one, though it is none the less sublime, and still it is a limited end which is not yet determined by means of multiplicity, and is thus an infinitely limited end. Both of these aspects correspond with one another, the infinitude of the Power and the limited character of its actual end. On the one hand there is sublimity, and on