Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/32

 and thus involves a contradiction, but the satisfaction of these is the removal of the contradiction.

In the case of impulse, in the presence of any need, I am distinguished from myself, and this within myself. But life just means the harmonising of the contradiction, the satisfying of the need, the attainment of peace, in such a way, however, that a contradiction springs up again. What we have is the alternation of the act of differentiation or contradiction, and of the removal of the contradiction.

The two are different in point of time, the element of succession is present in connection with them, and they are on that account finite. Here, too, the Understanding, in considering impulse and the satisfaction of impulse by themselves, fails to grasp the truth that in the very act of affirmation, in the very feeling of self, there is at the same time contained the negation of the feeling of self, limitation, defect, and yet I as having this feeling of self at once pass beyond this element of defect.

This is the ordinary definite idea of a μυστήριον. A mystery is also described as the incomprehensible; but it is just the Notion itself, the speculative element in thought, which is described as incomprehensible, the fact that what is rational is stated in terms of thought. It is just by means of thought that the element of difference is definitely developed.

The thinking of the impulse is merely the analysis of what the impulse is; the affirmation and the negation involved in it, the feeling of self, the satisfaction of the impulse and the impulse. To think it is just to recognise the element of difference which is in it. When, accordingly, the Understanding gets so far, it says: this is a contradiction, and it remains at this point, it holds by the contradiction in face of experience, which teaches that life itself just means the removal of the contradiction.

Thus, when the impulse is analysed, the contradiction comes to light, and then it can be said: impulse is