Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/234

 but are one-sided, both in reference to the subjective elevation of the spirit to God, and also in reference to the nature of God Himself. We wish to exhibit this one-sidedness in its more concrete form in reference to our subject. We have before us, to begin with, merely the abstract categories of Being and Notion, the contrast between them and their mode of relationship. It will be shown at the same time how these abstractions and their relations to one another constitute and determine the basis of what is most concrete.

That I may be able to put this thought in a more definite form, I may, by way of anticipation, refer to a further distinction, according to which there are three fundamental modes in which the connection of the two sides or characteristics appears. The first represents the passing over of the one characteristic into its Other; the second, their relativity, or the appearance of the one implicitly or actually in the Being of the Other; the third mode, again, is that of the Notion or the Idea, according to which the characteristic preserves itself in its Other in such a way that this unity, which is itself implicitly the original essence of the two, is considered as their subjective unity. Thus neither of them is one-sided, and they both together constitute the appearance of their unity, which is, to begin with, merely their substance, and thus eternally results from them as being the immanent appearance of totality, and is distinguished from them for itself as their unity, as this eternally unfolds itself in the form of their outward appearance.

The two one-sided ways of elevating the spirit to God thus indicated, accordingly directly exhibit their one-sidedness in a double form. The relations which spring from this call for mention. What has in general to be effected is that in the characteristic of the one side, namely, Being, the other characteristic, namely, the Notion, should appear, and, conversely, that in this latter the first-mentioned should be exhibited. Each determines itself to its Other, gives itself the characteristic of its Other in