Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/363

 the idea of the soul is involved in the universal life, the characteristic of the one all-disposing, all-ruling, organising νοῦς.

As regards the formal element here, we have to note the very same thing as we found in connection with the previous proofs. We have here once more the transition of the Understanding; because there are arrangements, ends of a like kind, there is a wisdom which disposes and orders everything. But the act of rising to this thought involves at the same time the negative moment, which is the main point, namely, that this life, these ends as they actually are, and as existing in their immediate finite form, do not represent what is true. On the contrary, it is this one life movement, this one νοῦς, which is what is true.

There are not two things; there is indeed a starting-point, but the mediation is of such a character that in the transition what is the first does not continue to be the basis, the condition. On the contrary, its untruth, its negation, is involved in this transition; the negation of the negative, finite element in it, the negation of the particularity of life. This negative is negated, and in this act of elevation, finite particularity disappears. As representing truth, the object of consciousness is the system of one life movement, the νοῦς of one life movement, the soul, the Universal Soul.

Here it happens again that this definition: God is the one universal active force of life, the soul which produces, posits, organises a κόσμος, is a conception which does not yet suffice to express the conception of God. It is essentially involved in the conception of God that He is Spirit.

We have still to consider the third, essential and absolute form from this point of view. In the transition just referred to, the content was life, the finite life movement, immediate life which actually exists. Here in the third form the content which forms the basis is