Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/77

 is merely abstract, for all determination lies outside of what is thus thought, and we have merely formal self-identity. Such an abstract kind of reconciliation cannot find, and ought not to find, a place in connection with this absolute standpoint, nor can the natural will find satisfaction within itself either, for neither it nor the world as it is can satisfy him who has become conscious of his infinity. The abstract depth of the opposition demands an infinite suffering on the part of the soul, and consequently a reconciliation which will be correspondingly complete.

These are the highest, most abstract moments, and the opposition or antithesis is the highest of all. The two sides represent the opposition in its most complete universality, in what is most inward, in the Universal itself, the two sides of the antithesis in the case in which the opposition goes deepest. Both sides are, however, one-sided; the first side contains the sorrow, the abstract humiliation referred to; what is highest here is simply this inadequacy of the subject to express the Universal, this division or disruption, which is not healed nor adjusted, representing the opposition between an infinite on the one side, and a fixed finitude on the other side. This finitude is abstract finitude; anything in this connection reckoned as belonging to me is, according to this way of looking at it, simply evil.

This abstraction finds its completion in the Other; this is thought in itself, it implies that I am adequate to myself, that I find satisfaction in myself and can be satisfied in myself. This second side is, however, actually just as one-sided, for it is merely the Affirmative, my self-affirmation in myself. The first side, the brokenness of heart, is merely negative, without affirmation in itself; the second is meant to represent this affirmation, this satisfaction of self within self. This satisfaction of myself in myself, however, is a merely abstract satisfaction reached by fleeing from the world, from reality, by