Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/65

 it is the consciousness of independent Being, or Being-for-self relatively to an Other, but also relatively to an Object which is inherently universal in the sense that it is the Notion, or rational will. It is only by means of this separation that I exist independently, for myself, and it is in this that evil lies. To be evil means in an abstract sense to isolate myself; the isolation which separates me from the Universal represents the element of rationality, the laws, the essential characteristics of Spirit. But it is along with this separation that Being-for-self originates, and it is only when it appears that we have the Spiritual as something universal, as Law, what ought to be.

It is therefore not the case that reflection stands in an external relation to evil, but, on the contrary, reflection itself is evil. This is the condition of contrast to which Man, because he is Spirit, must advance; he has, in fact, to be independent or for himself in such a way that he has as his object something which is his own object confronting him, which exists for him, the Good, the Universal, his essential or ideal character. Spirit is free, and freedom has within itself the essential element of the disunion referred to. It is in this disunion that independent Being or Being-for-self originates, and it is in it that evil has its seat; here is the source of the evil, but here also the point which is the ultimate source of reconciliation. It is at once what produces the disease, and the source of health. We cannot, however, better illustrate the character and mode of this movement of Spirit than by referring to the form it takes in the story of the Fall.

Sin is described by saying that Man ate of the tree of knowledge, &c. This implies the presence of knowledge, division, disunion in which good as existing for Man first shows itself, but, as a consequence, evil too. According to the story it is forbidden to eat of the tree, and thus evil is represented in a formal way as the