we have considered them, they at the beginning fall apart. In the order in which the modes or types of consciousness came before us, consciousness has reached the individual moments of that order, and also their unification, long before ever religion gave its object the shape and mould of actual self-consciousness. The unification of both aspects is not yet brought to light; it is this that winds up this series of embodiments of spiritual life, for in it spirit gets to the point where it knows itself not only as it is inherently in itself, or in terms of its absolute content, nor only as it is objectively for itself in terms of its bare form devoid of content, or in terms of self-consciousness, but as it is in its self-completeness, as it is inherently and explicitly, in itself and for itself.
This unification has, however, already taken place by implication, and has done so in religion, in the return of the objective presentation (Vorstellung) into self -consciousness, but not according to the proper form, for the religious aspect is the aspect of the essentially independent (Ansich) and stances in contrast to the process of self-consciousness. The unification therefore belongs to this other aspect, which by contrast is the aspect of reflection into self, is that side which contains its self and its opposite, and contains [ them not only implicitly (an sick) or in a general way, but explicitly (fur sicli) or expressly developed and distinguished. The content, as well as the other aspect of self-conscious spirit, so far as it is the other aspect, have been brought to light and are here in their completeness: the unification still a-wanting is the simple unity of the notion. This notion is also already given with the aspect of selfconsciousness; but as it previously came before us Absolute Knoivtedge 807 above, it, like all the other moments, has the form of being a particular mode or type of consciousness. It is that part of the embodiment of self-assured spirit which keeps within its essential principle and was called the " beautiful soul." That is to say, the " beautiful soul " is its own knowledge of itself in its pure transparent unity — self-consciousness, which knows this pure knowledge of pure inwardness to be spirit, is not merely intuition of the divine, but the self-intuition of God Himself.
Since this notion keeps itself fixedly opposed to its realisation, it is the one-sided form which we saw before disappear into thin air, but also take a positive external embodiment and advance further. Through the process of realisation, this self-consciousness bereft of objective content ceases to hold fast by itself, the abstract determinateness of the notion over against its fulfilment is cancelled and done away with. Its selfconsciousness attains the form of universality; and what remains is its true notion, the notion that has attained its realisation — the notion in its truth, i.e. in unity with its externalisation. It is knowledge of pure knowledge, not in the sense of an abstract essence such as duty is, but in the sense of an essential being which is this particular knowledge, this individual pure self-consciousness which is at the same time an object; for the object is the self -existing self.
This notion obtained its fulfilment partly from the acts performed by the spirit that is sure of itself, partly from religion. In the latter it obtained the absolute content qua content, or in the form of an ideal presentation or of otherness for consciousness. On the other hand, in the first the form is just the self, for that mode contains the active practical spirit sure of 808 Phenomenology of Mind itself; the self accomplishes the life of Absolute Spirit. This mode, as we see, is that simple notion, which however gives up its eternal inner Being, takes upon itself objective existence, or acts. The power of diremption or of coming forth out of its inwardness lies in the purity of the notion, for this purity is absolute abstraction or negativity. In the same way the notion finds its element of reality, or the objective being it contains, in pure knowledge itself; for this knowledge is simple immediacy, which is being and existence as well as essence, the former negative thought, the latter positive thought. This existence, finally, is just as much that state of reflection into self which comes out of pure existence — both qua existence and qua duty — and this is the state of evil. This process of " going into self " constitutes the opposition lying in the notion, and is thus the appearance on the scene of pure knowledge of the essence, a knowledge giving rise to no action and no reality. But to make its appearance in this opposition is to participate in it; pure knowledge of essence has inherently relinquished its simplicity, for it is the diremption or negativity which constitutes the notion. So far as this process of diremption is the process of becoming self-centred, it is the principle of evil: so far as it is the inherently essential, it is the principle of constant goodness.
Now what in the first instance takes place implicitly and inherently is at once objectively for consciousness, and is duplicated as well — is both for consciousness and is its self-existence or its own proper action. The same thing that is already inherently established, thus repeats itself now as knowledge thereof on the part of consciousness and as conscious action. Each finds the other lay aside the independence of character with which each appears confronting the other. This waiving of independence is the same renunciation of the one-sidedness of the notion as constituted implicitly the beginning; but it is now its own act of renunciation, just as the notion renounced is its own notion.
That implicit nature of the beginning is in truth as much mediated, because it is negativity; it now establishes itself as it is in its truth; and the negative element exists as a determinate quality which each has for the other, and is inherently and essentially selfcancelling, self-transcending. The one of the two parts of the opposition is the disparity between existence within itself in its individuality and universality; the other, disparity between its abstract universality and the self. The former lets its self-existence perish, and relinquishes itself, makes confession; the latter renounces the rigidity of its abstract universality, and thereby puts away its lifeless self and its inert universality; so that the former is completed through the moment of universality, which is the essence, and the latter through universality, which is self. By this process of action spirit has come to light in the form of pure universality of knowledge, which is self-consciousness as self-consciousness, which is simple unity of knowledge. It is through action that spirit is spirit so as definitely to exist; it raises its existence into the sphere of thought and hence into absolute opposition, and returns out of it through and within this very opposition.
Thus, then, what was in the case of religion objective content, or a way of ideally presenting an other, is here the action proper of the self. The notion is the connecting principle securing that the content is the action 810 Phenomenology of Mind proper of the self. For this notion is, as we see, the knowledge that the action of the self within itself is all that is essential and all existence, the knowledge of this Subject as Substance and of the Substance as this knowledge of its action. What we have done here, in addition, is simply to gather together the particular moments, each of which in principle exhibits the life of spirit in its entirety, and again to fix and secure the notion in the form of the notion, whose content was disclosed in those moments and had already presented itself in the form of a mode or type of consciousness.
This last embodiment of spirit — spirit which at once gives its complete and true content the form of self, and thereby realises its notion, and in doing so remains within its own notion — this is Absolute Knowledge. It is spirit knowing itself in the form of spirit, it is conceptual comprehensive knowledge through notions. Truth is here not merely in itself absolutely identical with certainty; it has also the typical form of certainty of self, or in its existence — i.e. for spirit knowing it — it is in the form of knowledge of itself. Truth is the content, which in the case of religion is not as yet at one with its certainty. This identification, however, is secured when the content has received the form and character of self. By this means, what constitutes the very essence, viz. the notion, comes to have the nature of existence, i.e. assumes the form of what is objective to consciousness. Spirit, appearing before consciousness in this element of existence, or, what is here the same thing, produced by it in this element, is systematic Science.
The nature, moments, and process of this type of Absolute Knowledge 811 knowledge have then come about in such a way that this knowledge is pure self-existence of self-consciousness.
It is ego, which is this concrete ego and no other, and at the same time, from its very, nature, is mediated, or sublated universal ego. It has a content, which it distinguishes from itself; for it is pure negativity, or self-diremption; it is consciousness. This content in its distinction is itself the ego, for it is the process of superseding itself, or the same pure negativity which constitutes ego. Ego is in it, qua distinguished, reflected into itself; only then is the content conceptualy comprehended (begriffen) when ego in its otherness is still at home with itself. More precisely stated, this content is nothing else than the very process just spoken of; for the content is the spirit which traverses the whole range of its own being, and does this for itself qua spirit, by the fact that it possesses the form of the notion in its objectivity.
As to the actual existence of this notion, science does not appear in time and in reality till spirit has arrived at this stage of being conscious regarding itself. Qua spirit which knows what it is, it did not exist before, and is not to be found at all till after the completion of the task of mastering and overcoming the imperfection of its form — the task of procuring for its consciousness and making itself aware of the shape of its inmost essence, and in this manner squaring its self-consciousness with its consciousness. Spirit in and for itself, spirit in its self-contained reality, is, when distinguished into its separate moments, self-existent knowledge, conceptual comprehension in general, which as such has not yet reached the substance, or is not in itself absolute knowledge.
Phenomenology of Mind Now in actual reality the knowing substance is arrived at earlier than its form, earlier than the form of the notion. For the substance is the undeveloped inherent nature, the fundamental notion in its inert simplicity, the state of inwardness or the self of spirit not yet objectivified. What is there, what does exist, is in the shape of unexpressed simplicity, the undeveloped immediate, or the object of presentative consciousness in general. Because knowledge (Erkennen) is a spiritual state of consciousness, which is only aware of what implicitly and inherently is so far as this is a being for the self and a being of the self or a notionknowledge has on this account merely a barren object to begin with, in contrast to which the substance and the consciousness of this substance are richer in content.
Revelation in such a case is, in fact, concealment; for the substance is here still self-less existence and nothing but certainty of self is manifest or revealed to it. To begin with, therefore, it is only the abstract moments that fall to self-consciousness when dealing with the substance. But since these moments are pure activities and must move forward by their very nature, selfconsciousness enriches itself till it has torn from consciousness the entire substance, and absorbed into itself the entire structure of the substance with all its constituent elements. Since this negative attitude towards objectivity is positive as well, establishes and fixes the content, it goes on till it has produced these elements out of itself and thereby reinstated them once more as objects of consciousness. In the notion, knowing itself as notion, the moments thus make their appearance prior to the whole in its complete fulfilment; the movement of these moments is the process by which Absolute Knowledge 813 the whole comes into being. In consciousness, on the other hand, the whole — but not as comprehended conceptually— is prior to the moments.
Time is just the notion definitely existent, and presented to consciousness in the form of empty pure intuition. Hence spirit necessarily appears in time, and it appears in time so long as it does not grasp its pure notion, i.e. so long as it does not annul time. Time is the pure self in external form, apprehended in intuition, and not grasped and understood by the self, it is the notion directly apprehended through intuition. When this notion grasps itself, it supersedes the time character, conceptually comprehends intuition, and is intuition comprehended and comprehending through conceptions. Time therefore appears as spirit's destiny and necessity, where spirit is not yet complete within itself; it is the necessity compelling spirit to increase and enrich the share self-consciousness has in consciousness, to put into motion the immediacy of the inherent nature (which is the form in which the substance is present in consciousness); or, conversely, to realise and make manifest what is inherent, regarded as inward and immanent, to make manifest that which is at first within — i.e. to vindicate and secure for it the certainty of self.
For this reason it must be said that nothing is consciously known which does not fall within experience, or (as it is also expressed) which is not felt to be true, which is not given as an inwardly revealed eternal verity, as a sacred object of belief, or whatever other expressions we care to employ. For experience just consists in this, that the content — and the content is spirit — in its inherent nature is substance and so object • 814 Phenomenology of Mind of consciousness. But this substance in which spirit consists, is the development of itself explicitly to what it is inherently and implicitly; and only by this process of reflecting itself into itself is it then essentially and in truth spirit. It is inherently the movement which constitutes the process of knowledge — the transforming of that implicit inherent nature into explicitness and objectivity, of Substance into Subject, of the object of consciousness into the object of self-consciousness, i.e.
into an object that is at the same time superseded and transcended — in other words, into the notion. This transforming process is a cycle that returns into itself, a cycle that presupposes its beginning, and reaches its beginning only at the end. So far as spirit, then, is of necessity this process of self-distinction, it appears as a single whole, intuitively apprehended, over against its simple self-consciousness. And since that whole is the aspect distinguished, it is distinguished into the intuitively apprehended pure notion, Time, and the content, the inherent implicit nature. Substance, qua subject, involves the necessity, at first an inner necessity, to set forth in itself what it inherently is, to show itself to be spirit. The completed systematic expression in objective form becomes, then, at the same time the reflection of substance, the development of it into a self or subject. Consequently, until and unless spirit is inherently completed, completed as a world-spirit, it cannot reach its completion as self-conscious spirit. The content of religion therefore expresses earlier in time than speculative science what spirit is; but science alone is the perfect form in which spirit truly knows itself. ;The process of carrying forward this form of know- Absolute Knowledge 815 ledge of itself constitutes the task which spirit accomplishes in the concrete actual shape of History. The religious communion, in so far as it is at the outset the substance of Absolute Spirit, is the crude form of consciousness, which has an existence all the harsher and more barbaric the deeper is its inner spirit; and its inarticulate stolid self has all the harder task in dealing with its essence, the unconceived content alien to its consciousness. Not till it has surrendered the hope of cancelling that foreignness by an external, i.e. alien method, does it turn to itself, to its own peculiar world in the actual present. It turns thither because to supersede that alien method means returning into self-consciousness. It thus discovers this world in the living present to be its own property; and so has taken the first step to descend from the ideal intelligible world, the world of the intellect, or rather to endue the abstract element of the intellect with concrete self-hood. Through " observation/' on the one hand, it finds existence in the shape of thought, and comprehends existence; and, conversely, it finds in its thought existence.* When, in the first instance, it has thus itself expressed in an abstract way the immediate unity of thought and existence, of abstract Being and Self; and when it has expressed the primal principle of "Light" in a purer form, viz. as unity of extension and existence — for " existence " is an ultimate simple term more akin to thought than " Light " - and in this way has revived again in thought the Substance of the Orient, f the Absolute Substance of Eastern Religions; thereupon spirit at once recoils in horror from this abstract unity, from this * Descartes. t Spinoza.
816 Phenomenology of Mind self-less substance, and maintains as against it the principle of subjective Individuality.* But after spirit has relinquished this principle and brought it under the ordeal of culture, has thereby made it an objective existence and established it throughout the whole of existence, has arrived at the idea of "Utility"! and in the sphere of absolute freedom has found the key to existence to be Individual Will,J — after these stages spirit then brings to light the thought that lies in its inmost depths, and expresses ultimate Reality in the form Ego = Ego.§ This "Ego identical with Ego" is, however, an inward, self-reflecting process; for since this identity qua absolute negativity is absolute distinction, the selfidentity of the Ego stands in contrast to this absolute distinction, which — being pure distinction and at the same time objective to the self that knows itself— has to be expressed as Time. In this way, just as formerly ultimate Eeality was expressed as unity of thought and extension, it would here be interpreted as unity of thought and time. But distinction left to itself, unresting, unhalting time, really collapses upon itself; it is the objective quiescence, the stable continuity of extension; while this latter is pure identity with self — is Ego.
Again, Ego is not merely self, it is identity of self with itself. This identity, however, is complete and immediate unity with self; in other words this Subject is just as much Substance. Substance by itself alone would be void and empty Intuition (Anschaueri), or the intuition of a content which qua specific would * Leibnitz. t The principle of the (C Aufklurung.3' I Kant. § Fichte.
Absolute Knowledge 817 have merely a contingent character and would be devoid of necessity. Substance would only stand for the Absolute in so far as Substance was thought of or " intuited " as absolute unity; and all content would, as regards its diversity, have to fall outside the Substance and be due to reflection, a process which does not belong to Substance, because Substance would not be Subject, would not be conceived as Spirit, as reflecting about self and reflecting itself into self. If, nevertheless, a content were to be spoken of, then on the one hand, it would only exist in order to be thrown into the empty abysm of the Absolute, while on the other it would be picked up in external fashion from sense perception. Knowledge would appear to have come by things, by what is distinct from knowledge itself, and to have got at the distinctions between the endless variety of things, without any one understanding how or where all this came from.* Spirit, however, has shown itself to be neither the mere withdrawal of self-consciousness into its pure inwardness, nor the mere absorption of self-consciousness into blank Substance devoid of all distinctions. Spirit is the movement of the self which empties itself of self and sinks itself within its own substance, and qua subject, both goes out of that substance into itself, making its substance an object and a content, and also supersedes this distinction of objectivity and content. That first reflection out of immediacy is the subject's distinction of self from its substance, the notion in a state of self-diremption, the subjectification of the self, and the coming of the pure ego into being. Since this distinction is the action pure and simple of Ego = Ego, * Schelling'.
818 Phenomenology of Mind the notion is the necessity for and the uprising of existence, which has the substance for its essential nature and subsists on its own account. But this subsisting of existence for itself is the notion established and realised in determinate form, and is thereby the notion's own inherent movement — that of descending into the bare and simple substance, which is only subject by being this negativity and going through this process.
Ego has not to take its stand on the form of selfconsciousness in opposition to the form of substantiality and objectivity, as if it were afraid of emptying itself and becoming objective. The power of spirit lies rather in remaining one with itself when giving up itself, and, because it is self-contained and self-subsistent, in establishing as mere moments its explicit self-existence as well as its implicit inherent nature. Nor again is Ego a tertium quid which casts distinctions back into the abysm of the Absolute, and declares them all to mean the same there. On the contrary, true knowledge lies rather in the seeming inactivity which merely watches and considers how the element distinguished proceeds, how it is self-moved by its very nature and returns again into its own unity.
With absolute knowledge, then, Spirit has wound up the process of its various forms and modes, so far as in assuming these various shapes and forms it is affected with the insurmountable distinction which consciousness implies [i.e. the distinction of consciousness from its object or content]. Spirit has attained the pure element of its existence, the notion. The content is, in view of the freedom of its own existence, the self that empties and gives up itself to objectivity; in other words, that Absolute Knowledge 819 content is the immediate unity of self-knowledge. The pure process of thus relinquishing itself to externality constitutes — when we consider this process in its bearing on the content — the necessity of this content. The diversity of content is, qua determinate and specific, due to relation, and is not inherent; it is its restless activity of cancelling and superseding itself, or its negativity. Thus the necessity or diversity, like its free existence, is the self too; and in this self-form, in which existence is immediately thought, the content is a notion. Seeing, then, that Spirit has attained the notion, it unfolds its existence and develops its processes in this ether of its life and is Systematic Science. The moments of its process are set forth in Science no longer as determinate modes or forms of consciousness, but — since the distinction, which consciousness implies, has reverted to and has become a distinction within the self — as determinate notions, and as the organic self-explaining and self-constituted process of these conceptions. While in the Phenomenology of Mind each moment is the distinction of knowledge and truth, and the process in which that distinction is cancelled and transcended, on the other hand Systematic Science does not contain this distinction and supersession of distinction. Rather, since each moment has the form of the notion, it unites the objective form of truth and the knowing self in an immediate unity. In Science the individual moment does not appear as the process of passing back and forward from consciousness or presentation to self-consciousness and conversely: there the pure form, liberated from the condition of being an appearance in mere consciousness, — the pure notion with its further development, depends solely and purely 820 Phenomenology of Mind on its characteristic and specific nature. Conversely, again, there corresponds to every abstract moment of absolute Science a form or mode in which mind as a whole makes it appearance. As the mind that actually exists and historically appears is not richer than Science, so, too, mind in its actual content is not poorer. To know the pure notions of Science in the form in which they are modes or types of consciousness — this constitutes the aspect of their reality, in which its essential element, the notion, appearing there in its simple mediating activity as thinking, breaks up and separates the moments of this mediation, and exhibits its content by reference to the internal and immanent opposition of its elements.
Science contains within itself this necessity of relinquishing and divesting itself of the form of the pure notion, and necessarily involves the transition of the notion into consciousness. For Spirit that knows itself is, just for the reason that it grasps its own notion, immediate identity with itself; and this, in the distinction it implies, is the certainty of what is immediate or is sense-consciousness — the beginning from which we started. This process of releasing itself from the form of its self is the highest freedom and security of its knowledge of itself.
All the same, this relinquishment of self and abandonment to externality are still incomplete. This process expresses the relation of the certainty of its self to the object, an object which, just by being in relation, has not yet attained its full freedom. Systematic knowledge is aware not only of itself, but also of the negative of itself, or its limit. Knowing its limit means knowing how Absolute Knowledge 821 to sacrifice itself. This sacrifice is the emptying of self, the self-abandonment, in which Spirit sets forth, in the form of free and unconstrained fortuitous contingency, its process of becoming Spirit, intuitively apprehending outside it its pure self as Time, and likewise its existence as Space.* This last form into which Spirit passes, Nature, is its living immediate process of development. Nature — Spirit divested of self and given over to externality — is, in its actual existence, nothing but this eternal process of abandoning its own independent subsistence, and the movement which reinstates Subject.