Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/218

 only through His notion, in which again, consequently, we find, after having followed this unnecessary and roundabout road through the world to God, that the attributes get their definite character, while the notion, if it is not to be something empty, but, on the contrary, is to be something full of content, is made explicit only through them. It results from this that the differences which we have met with are so formal that they cannot be taken as the basis of any substantial element, or of any particular spheres of existence which, if regarded apart from each other, could be considered as representing something true. The elevation of the spirit to God is found in one thing, in the determination of His notion, of His attributes, and of His Being; or God as notion or idea is the absolutely Indeterminate, and it is only when there is a transition, namely, to Being—and this is the transition in its very first and most abstract form—that the notion and the idea enter on the stage of determinateness. This determinateness, to be sure, is poor enough, but the reason of this just is that the Metaphysic referred to begins with possibility, a possibility which, although it is meant to be that of the notion of God, comes to be the mere possibility of the Understanding, which is devoid of all content, simple identity. Thus we find that in reality we are dealing merely with the final abstractions of thought in general and Being, and with their opposition as well as with their inseparableness, such as we have seen these to be. Since we have pointed out the nullity of the differences with which the metaphysical principle in question starts, we have to remember that only one result follows so far as the process involved in them is concerned, this, namely, that along with the differences we give up the process. One of the proofs which we have to consider will have for its content the very contrast of thought and Being, which we already see making its appearance here, and which will therefore be examined in its proper place in accordance with the value which it itself possesses. Here, however,