Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/83

 remains true to itself in its universality, and in consequence of which no other determinations present themselves unless that unity itself, is it the Good. It is therefore the true content which has objectivity, the Good, which is the same as the True. This Good is at the same time self-determination of the One, of absolute Substance, and in being such it directly remains absolute Power—the Good as absolute Power, Such is the determination of the content.

2. It is just in this determination of the Absolute, and in the fact that it is self-determination and the Good, in which even concrete life is able to behold its affirmative root, and to become conscious of itself in a true manner, that there lies the connection with the concrete, with the world, with concrete empirical life generally. Out of this Power all things proceed. We had this determination of the Absolute in the foregoing forms, where it implied that this mode of self-determination, as a mode of determination, contains abstract determination, is not self-determination, what has returned into itself, what remains in identity, the True and Good in the universal sense, but is the act of determination generally. Power, as such, is neither good nor wise; it has no end in view, but is merely determined as Being and Not-being; it is characterised by wildness, by modes of acting savouring of madness in fact. For this reason Power is intrinsically what is without determination.

This moment of Power is also present, but as something subordinated. Thus it is concrete life, the world in manifold existence; but that which is all-important is that in the Good, as self-determination, is contained this absolute characteristic, namely, the connection of the Good with the concrete world.

Subjectivity, particularity generally, is in this Substance, in the One itself, which is the absolute subject. This element, which belongs to the particular life, this determinateness is at the same time posited in the Absolute