Phenomenology of Spirit — G. W. F. Hegel

682 Phenomenology of Mind they are for one another these absolutely opposed elements ; it is what is completely inner that has in this way come into opposition to itself and entered objective existence ; they constitute pure knowledge, which, owing to this opposition, takes the form of consciousness. But as yet it is not self -consciousness. It obtains this actualisation in the course of the process through which this opposition passes.

For this opposition is really itself the indiscrete continuity and identity of ego = ego ; and each by itself inherently cancels itself just through the contradiction in its pure universality, which, while implying continuity and identity, at the same time still resists its identity with the other, and separates itself from it.

Through this rehnquishment of separate selfhood, the knowledge, which in its existence is in a state of diremption, returns into the unity of the self ; it is the concrete actual Ego, universal knowledge of self in its absolute opposite, in the knowledge which is internal to and within the self, and which, because of the very purity of its separate subjective existence, is itself completely universal.

The reconcihng affirmation, the " yes,'' with which both egos desist from their existence in opposition, is the existence of the ego expanded into a duality, an ego which remains therein one and identical with itself, and possesses the certainty of itself in its complete relinquishment and its opposite : it is God appearing in the midst of those who know themselves in the form of pure knowledge.

(CC) RELIGION [The appearance of Absolute Spirit as a principle constituting on its own account a distinctive stage of experience is at once a demand of the preceding development and a condition of making experience selfcomplete.

Finite or socialised spiritual existence is at its best incapable of establishing the truth that " Spirit is the only reality " ; for the more finite spirit approximates to the state of claiming to be self-contained the more is it dependent on universal self-consciousness. A trans-finite or Absolute Spiritual Being as such is thus necessary to realise and sustain the fullness of meaning which finite spirit possesses.

Moreover, if " the truth is the whole," and only so is truth self-complete and self-explaining, and, if reality is essentially spiritual — then experience only finds its complete meaning realised in the principle of Absolute Spirit. Hence the final stage of the Phenomenology of experience is the appearance therein of Absolute Spirit.

Moreover, Absolute Spirit, in its own distinctive existence, could only appear at the end of the process of experience, for the whole of that process is required to reveal and to constitute the substance of which the Absolute consists.

But the peculiarity of the stage now reached is that here the Absolute operates in its undivided totality to form a definite type of experience ; or, in the language of the text, we have the Absolute here " conscious of its self.

No doubt, in all the previous stages, "consciousness," "self-consciousness," " reason," " spirit," the Absolute has been implied as a limiting principle, at once substantiating and determining the boundaries of each stage : hence each stage had an Absolute of its own, the character of which was derived in each case from the peculiarity of the stage in question.

Now, however, we have the Absolute by itself, in its single self-completeness, as the sole formative factor of a certain type of experience. The Absolute, then, in its own self-complete reality appears as the constitutive principle of experience. The experience here is the selfconsciousness of Absolute Spirit ; it appears to itself in all its objects.

Since all the modes of finitude hitherto considered (consciousness, selfconsciousness, etc.) are embraced in its single totality, it may use each and all of these various modes as the media through and in which to appear, 683

684 Phenomenology of Mind When it appears in and through these modes of fiuitude we have the attitude of Religion. Since these modes, as we saw, differ, the religious attitude differs ; and accordingly we have various types or forms of religion.

Each of these forms, in and through which the Absolute appears, is circumscribed in its nature and process ; each is fer se inadequate to the revelation of complete absolute self-consciousness : hence the variety of religions is necessitated by and is indirectly due to the failure of any one type and the inadequacy of every single type to reveal the Absolute completely.

A form of appearance or self-manifestation of the Absolute is therefore demanded which will reveal Absolute Spirit adequately to itself as it essentially is in itself. Here it will know itself, so to say, face to face, and with perfect completeness. This form is Ahsohde Knowledge- Hence Religion and Absolute Knowledge are the final stages in the argument of the Phenomenology.

The former is dealt with in the immediately succeeding section (VII) and its various subsections ; the latter forms the subject of the concluding section (VIII) of the work.]