Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/286

 of the opposite characteristics in something higher is not merely our act, or a matter with which we only have to do, in the sense that we only bring it about, but expresses the very nature and action of these characteristics themselves, since they are united in one characteristic. So, too, these two moments of necessity, namely, that its mediation with an Other is in itself, and that it does away with this mediation and posits itself by its own act because of this very unity, are not separate acts. In the mediation with an Other it relates itself to itself, that is, the Other through which it mediates itself with itself is itself. Thus as an Other it is negated; it is itself the Other, but only momentarily—momentarily without, however, introducing the quality of time into the notion, a quality which first appears when the notion comes to have a definite existence. This Other-Being or otherness is essentially something which disappears in something higher, and it is in determinate existence also that it appears as a real Other. But the absolute necessity is the necessity which is adequate to its notion or conception.