Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/222

 contained in the one Notion, in the one subject. And the unity of the subject with itself becomes the more intensive the greater the number of differences developed in it. The further continuous determination or specification which takes place is at the same time a going into itself on the part of the subject, a going down into or absorption of itself in itself.

When we say that it is one and the same Notion which is merely further determined, we are employing a formal expression. Any further and continued determination of what is one and the same adds several determinations to what is thus further defined. This richness in increased determination or specification must not, however, be thought of simply as a multiplicity of determinations, but rather as concrete. These concrete aspects regarded in themselves even take on the form of a complete self-existing whole. But when posited in one notion, in one subject, they are not independent and separate from one another in it, but rather exist ideally, and the unity of the subject accordingly becomes all the more intensive. The greatest intensity of the subject in the ideality of all concrete determinations, of the most complete antitheses, is Spirit. By way of giving a clearer conception of this, we shall refer to the relation of Nature and Spirit. Nature is contained in Spirit, is created by it, and spite of its apparently immediate Being, of its apparently independent reality, it is in itself something merely posited or dependent, something created, something having an ideal existence in Spirit. When in the course of knowledge we advance from Nature to Spirit, and Nature is defined as simply a moment of Spirit, we do not reach a true multiplicity, a substantial two, the one of which would be Nature, and the other Spirit; but, on the contrary, the Idea which is the substance of Nature, having taken on the deeper form of Spirit, retains in itself that content in this infinite intensity of ideality, and is all the richer because of the determination