Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/297

 which is external and finite, in which each of the two sides is in a relation of reference to the other. It constitutes one of the characteristics of these two sides, but it has at the same time a substantial existence of its own outside of the relation between them. The characteristic which the two different elements taken together constitute, and which is in itself simply one, is the Absolutely-necessary. Its name at once declares it to be the Only-one, what truly is, the only reality. We have seen how its notion is the mediation which returns into itself, the mediation which is merely a mediation with itself by means of the Other which is distinguished from it, and which is taken up into the One, the Absolutely-necessary, negated as something having Being, and preserved merely as something ideal. Outside of this absolute, inherent unity, however, the two sides of the relation are in this kind of syllogism kept also externally apart from each other as things which have Being; the contingent is. This proposition is inherently self-contradictory, and is likewise in contradiction with the result, the absolute necessity, which is not merely placed on one side, but, on the contrary, is the whole of Being.

If therefore we begin with the contingent, we must not set out from it as if it were something which is to remain fixed in such a way that it continues to be in the further development of the argument something which has Being. This is its one-sided determinateness. On the contrary, it is to be posited with its completely determinate character, which implies that non-Being may quite as well be attributed to it, and that it consequently enters into the result as something which passes away. Not because the contingent is, but, on the contrary, because it is non-Being, merely phenomenal, because its Being is not true reality, the absolute necessity is. This latter is its Being and Truth.

This moment of the Negative is not found in the form taken by the syllogism of the Understanding, and this is