Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/274

 foregoing remarks that the two propositions cannot be separated from each other. The very fact that the form of the syllogism belonging to the Understanding is abandoned so far as the one is concerned, implies that the separation of the two has been abandoned also. The moment which has still to be dealt with is accordingly already contained in the given development of the dialectic of the finite.

If, however, in showing how the finite passes over into the Infinite, we have made it appear as if the finite were taken as the starting-point for the Infinite, so, too, the other proposition, which is merely the converse proposition or transition, seems to be necessarily defined as a passing over from the Infinite to the finite, or, in other words, has to take on the form of the proposition: “The Infinite is finite.” In this equation the proposition: the Infinite is, would not contain the entire characteristic which has to be dealt with here. This difference disappears, however, when we consider that Being, since it is the Immediate, is directly differentiated from the characteristic of the Infinite, and is, as a direct consequence of this, characterised simply as finite. The logical nature which thus belongs to Being or immediacy in general is, however, presupposed as given by logic. This characteristic of the finitude of Being, however, comes directly into view in the connection in which Being here stands. For the Infinite, in resolving to become Being, determines itself to what is other than itself; but then the Other of the Infinite is just the finite.

If, further, as was previously indicated, the subject appears in the judgment as something presupposed, what has Being in fact, while the predicate is something universal, namely, thought, then in the proposition, “The Infinite is,” a proposition which is at the same time a judgment, the determination seems rather to be reversed, since the predicate expressly involves Being, while the subject, the Infinite namely, exists in thought only,