Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/238

 namely, the family, the nation. But this end is only realised in so far as the service of the Lord is not neglected. Through this latter requirement, which implies the abrogation of the subjective spirit so far as the determinate end is concerned, this end becomes a universal one. Thus if, on the one hand, through the breaking up of the one subjectivity into a multiplicity of ends, subjectivity is lowered to the condition of particularity, on the other hand, the particularity is set over against universality, and these differences in this way here become divine, universal differences. This particularity of the ends is thus the coming together of the abstract universality and the individuality of the end—their happy mean. This particularity thus constitutes the content of universal subjectivity, and in so far as it is posited in this element it gives itself a subjective form as a subject. With this we enter upon a really ethical stage, for when we have the Divine penetrating the determinate relations of Spirit in an actual form, determining itself in accordance with the substantial unity, we have what is ethical. And at the same time the real freedom of subjectivity also comes into existence, for the definite content is something which the finite self-consciousness has in common with its God. Its God ceases to be a “Beyond,” and has a definite content which on its determinate side is elevated to essentiality, and through the abolition and absorption of the immediate individuality or singleness has become an essentially existing content.

As regards the constituent element as such, the content that is, the substantial principle, as has been shown in the context, is just rationality, the freedom of Spirit, essential freedom. This freedom is not caprice, and must be clearly distinguished from it; it is essential, substantial freedom, the freedom which in its determinations determines itself. Since freedom, as self-determining, is the principle or basis of this relation, what we