Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/87

 pure manifestation, determination of self by self, but in an entirely simple, universal manner.

If Brahma had to be represented in a sensuous fashion, he could only be represented as abstract space. Brahma has not as yet, however, the force within himself to be independently represented, but has as his realisation the empirical consciousness of man.

The fact that the Good at which we have arrived is still supposed to have essentially a natural form, although certainly it is nature in the pure form of Light, presents a certain difficulty. But Nature cannot possibly be left out by Spirit; it essentially belongs to Spirit.

God, too, as inherently concrete, as pure Spirit, is at the same time essentially Creator and Lord of nature. Thus the Idea in its Notion, God in His essential Being itself, must posit this reality, this external existence which we call Nature. The moment of naturalness, therefore, cannot be dispensed with, only it exists here as yet in an abstract form—in this immediate unity with the Spiritual, the Good, just because the Good is as yet this abstraction.

The Good contains determinateness within itself, and in determinateness is the root of natural existence. We say, “God creates the world.” Creation is this subjectivity to which determinateness in general pertains. It is in this activity or subjectivity that the essential character of nature lies, and indeed in the more definite relation which implies that that nature is something created. This does not, however, as yet exist here. What is present here is abstract determinateness.

This determinateness has essentially the form of nature generally, of Light, and of immediate unity with the Good; for the Immediate is itself just the Abstract, because determinateness is merely this universal, undeveloped determinateness.

Light, accordingly, has darkness standing over against it. In Nature these two characteristics are separate from one another in this fashion. This is the impotence of