Phenomenology of Spirit — G. W. F. Hegel

Belief and Pure Insight 537 This pure consciousness of Absolute Being is a consciousness in alienation. Let us see more closely what is the characteristic of that whose other it is ; we can only consider it in connection with this other. In the first instance this pure consciousness seems to have over against it merely the world of actuality.

But since its nature is to flee from this actuality, and thereby is characterised by opposition, it has this actuality inherent within its own being ; pure consciousness is, therefore, essentially in its very being self-alienated, and belief constitutes merely one side of it. The other side has already arisen too.

For pure consciousness is reflexion out of the world of culture in such a way that the substantial content of this sphere, as also the separate fragments into which it falls, are shown to be what they inherently are, — essential modes of spiritual life, absolutely restless processes or determinate moments which are at once cancelled in their opposite.

Their essential nature, bare consciousness, is thus the bare simplicity of absolute distinction, distinction which as it stands is no distinction. Consequently it is pure self-existence not of a particular self, but essentially universal self, whose being consists in a restless process invading and pervading the stable existence of actual fact.

In it is found the certainty that knows itself at once to be the truth ; there we have pure thought in the sense of absolute notion with all its power of negativity, which annihilates every objective existence that would claim to stand over against consciousness, and turns it into a form of conscious existence. This pure consciousness is at the same time simple and undifferentiated as well, just because its distinction is no distinction. Being this form of bare and simple

538 Phenomenology of Mind reflexion into self, however, it is the element of beHef, in which spirit has the special feature of positive universality, of what is inherent and essential in contrast with that self-existence on the part of self-consciousness.

Forced back upon itself away from this unsubstantial world whose being is mere dissolution, spirit in its undivided unity is, when we consider its true meaning, at once the absolute movement, the ceaseless process of negating its appearance, as well as the essential substance thereof satisfied within itself, and the positive stability of that appearance.

But, bearing as they inherently do the characteristic of alienation, both these moments fall apart in the shape of a twofold consciousness. The former is pure Insight, the spiritual process concentrated and focussed in self- consciousness, a process which has over against it the consciousness of something positive, the form of objectivity or presentation, and which directs itself upon this presented object.

The proper and peculiar object of this insight is, however, merely pure ego.* The bare consciousness of the positive element, of unbroken self-identity, finds its object, on the other hand, in the inner reality as such. Pure insight has, therefore, in the first instance, no content within it, because it exists for itself by negating everything in it ; to belief, on the other hand, belongs the content, but without insight.

While the former does not get away from self-consciousness, the latter to be sure has its content as well in the element of pure self-consciousness, but only in presentation, not in conceptions — in pure consciousness, not in pure selfconsciousness. Behef is, as a fact, in this way pure * Kaut : " Pure ego is the absolute unity of apperception."

Belief and Pure Insight 539 consciousness of the essential reality, i.e. of tlie bare and simple inner nature, and is thus thought — the primary factor in the nature of beUef , which is generally overlooked.* The immediateness which characterises the presence of the essential reaHty within it is due to the fact that its object is essence, inner nature, i.e. pure thought, f This immediateness, however, so far as thinking enters consciousness, or pure consciousness enters into self-consciousness, maintains the significance of an objective being that lies beyond consciousness of self.

It is because of the significance which immediacy and simplicity of pure thought thus retain in consciousness that the essential reality in the case of behef drops into being an objectively presented idea (Vorstellung), instead of being the content of thought, and comes to be looked at as a supersensible world, which is essentially an " other " for self-consciousness.

In the case of pure insight, on the other hand, the entrance of pure thought into consciousness has the opposite character : objectivity has the significance of a content that is merely negative, that cancels itself and returns into the self ; that is to say, only the self is properly object to self, or, to put it otherwise, the object only has truth so far as it has the form of self.

As behef and pure insight fall in common within pure consciousness, they also in common involve the mind's return out of the concrete sphere of spiritual culture. There are three aspects, therefore, from which they show what they are. In one aspect each * " Belief is a kind of knowledge." — Encycl. : § 554. + Kant : " I am the essential realitj' when conscious of myself in pure thought.'