Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/335

 the more immediate conclusion referred to by him, namely, that from the interchange of the two “it may be successfully inferred that things can originate without originating, and alter without undergoing alteration, and can be before and after each other without being before and after.” Such conclusions are too absurd to require any further comment. The contradiction to which the Understanding reduces a principle is an ultimate one; it is simply the limit of the horizon of thought beyond which it is not possible to go, but in presence of which we must turn back. We have, however, seen how the solution of this contradiction is reached, and we shall apply it to the contradiction in the form in which it here appears and is here stated, or rather we shall simply briefly indicate the estimate to be formed of the above assertion. The conclusion referred to, that things may originate without originating, and alter without undergoing alteration, is manifestly absurd. We can see that it expresses the idea of self-mediation through an Other, of mediation as self-annulling mediation, but likewise that this mediation is directly abandoned. The abstract expression, Things, does its part in bringing the finite before the mind. The finite is a form of limited Being to which only one of two opposite qualities attaches, and which does not remain with itself in the Other, but simply perishes. But then the Infinite is this mediation with self through the Other, and without repeating the exposition of this conception, we may take an example from the sphere of natural things without going at all to that of spiritual existence, namely, life as a whole. What is well known to us as its self-preservation is “successfully” expressed in terms of thought as the infinite relation in virtue of which the living individual of whose process of self-preservation we alone speak here, without paying attention to its other characteristics, continually produces itself in its existence. This existence is not identical Being, Being in a state of repose, but, on the contrary, represents