Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/298

 why it is defective when it appears in this region which is that of the living reason of Spirit, in the region, that is, in which absolute necessity itself is considered as the true result, as something which does indeed mediate itself through an Other, but mediates itself with itself by absorbing this Other. Thus the course followed by that knowledge of necessity is different from the process which necessity is. Such a course is therefore not to be considered as simply necessary true movement, but rather as finite activity. It is not infinite knowledge, it has not the infinite for its content and for the basis of its activity, for the infinite appears only as this mediation with self through the negation of the negative.

The defect which has been pointed out as existing in this form of the process of reasoning, means, as has been indicated, that the elevation of Spirit to God has not been correctly explained in that proof of the existence of God which it constitutes. If we compare the two we see that this act of elevation is undoubtedly also an act whereby Spirit goes beyond worldly existence, as well as beyond what is merely temporal, changeable, and transitory. The world-element, it is true, is declared to be actual existence, and we start from it; but since, as was remarked, it is defined as the temporal, the contingent, the changeable and transitory, its Being is not satisfying for truth, it is not the truly affirmative, it is defined as what annuls and negates itself. It does not persistently retain its characteristic, to be; on the contrary, a Being is attributed to it which has no more value than non-Being whose characteristic contains in itself its non-Being, its Other, and consequently its contradiction, its disintegration and dissolution. But even if it seem to be the case, or may even actually be the case, that so far as faith is concerned this contingent Being as something present to consciousness remains standing on one side confronting the other side, the Eternal, the Necessary in-and-for-itself, in the form of a world above which is