These systems and modes of pictorial conception originate from the one need common to all philosophies and all religions of getting an idea of G.o.d, and, secondly, of the relationship of G.o.d and the world. (In philosophy it is specially made out that the determination of G.o.d"s nature determines his relations with the world.) The "reflective" understanding begins by rejecting all systems and modes of conception, which, whether they spring from heart, imagination or speculation, express the interconnexion of G.o.d and the world: and in order to have G.o.d pure in faith or consciousness, he is as essence parted from appearance, as infinite from the finite. But, after this part.i.tion, the conviction arises also that the appearance has a relation to the essence, the finite to the infinite, and so on: and thus arises the question of reflection as to the nature of this relation. It is in the reflective form that the whole difficulty of the affair lies, and that causes this relation to be called incomprehensible by the agnostic. The close of philosophy is not the place, even in a general exoteric discussion, to waste a word on what a "notion" means. But as the view taken of this relation is closely connected with the view taken of philosophy generally and with all imputations against it, we may still add the remark that though philosophy certainly has to do with unity in general, it is not however with abstract unity, mere ident.i.ty, and the empty absolute, but with concrete unity (the notion), and that in its whole course it has to do with nothing else;-that each step in its advance is a peculiar term or phase of this concrete unity, and that the deepest and last expression of unity is the unity of absolute mind itself. Would-be judges and critics of philosophy might be recommended to familiarise themselves with these phases of unity and to take the trouble to get acquainted with them, at least to know so much that of these terms there are a great many, and that amongst them there is great variety. But they show so little acquaintance with them-and still less take trouble about it-that, when they hear of unity-and relation _ipso facto_ implies unity-they rather stick fast at quite abstract indeterminate unity, and lose sight of the chief point of interest-the special mode in which the unity is qualified. Hence all they can say about philosophy is that dry ident.i.ty is its principle and result, and that it is the system of ident.i.ty. Sticking fast to the undigested thought of ident.i.ty, they have laid hands on, not the concrete unity, the notion and content of philosophy, but rather its reverse. In the philosophical field they proceed, as in the physical field the physicist; who also is well aware that he has before him a variety of sensuous properties and matters-or usually matters alone, (for the properties get transformed into matters also for the physicist)-and that these matters (elements) _also_ stand in _relation_ to one another. But the question is, Of what kind is this relation? Every peculiarity and the whole difference of natural things, inorganic and living, depend solely on the different modes of this unity. But instead of ascertaining these different modes, the ordinary physicist (chemist included) takes up only one, the most external and the worst, viz. _composition_, applies only it in the whole range of natural structures, which he thus renders for ever inexplicable.
The aforesaid shallow pantheism is an equally obvious inference from this shallow ident.i.ty. All that those who employ this invention of their own to accuse philosophy gather from the study of G.o.d"s _relation_ to the world is that the one, but only the one factor of this category of relation-and that the factor of indeterminateness-is ident.i.ty. Thereupon they stick fast in this half-perception, and a.s.sert-falsely as a fact-that philosophy teaches the ident.i.ty of G.o.d and the world. And as in their judgment either of the two,-the world as much as G.o.d-has the same solid substantiality as the other, they infer that in the philosophic Idea G.o.d is _composed_ of G.o.d and the world. Such then is the idea they form of pantheism, and which they ascribe to philosophy. Unaccustomed in their own thinking and apprehending of thoughts to go beyond such categories, they import them into philosophy, where they are utterly unknown; they thus infect it with the disease against which they subsequently raise an outcry. If any difficulty emerge in comprehending G.o.d"s relation to the world, they at once and very easily escape it by admitting that this relation contains for them an inexplicable contradiction; and that hence, they must stop at the vague conception of such relation, perhaps under the more familiar names of, e.g. omnipresence, providence, &c. Faith in their use of the term means no more than a refusal to define the conception, or to enter on a closer discussion of the problem. That men and cla.s.ses of untrained intellect are satisfied with such indefiniteness, is what one expects; but when a trained intellect and an interest for reflective study is satisfied, in matters admitted to be of superior, if not even of supreme interest, with indefinite ideas, it is hard to decide whether the thinker is really in earnest with the subject. But if those who cling to this crude "rationalism" were in earnest, e.g. with G.o.d"s omnipresence, so far as to realise their faith thereon in a definite mental idea, in what difficulties would they be involved by their belief in the true reality of the things of sense! They would hardly like, as Epicurus does, to let G.o.d dwell in the inters.p.a.ces of things, i.e. in the pores of the physicists,-said pores being the negative, something supposed to exist _beside_ the material reality. This very "Beside" would give their pantheism its spatiality,-their everything, conceived as the mutual exclusion of parts in s.p.a.ce. But in ascribing to G.o.d, in his relation to the world, an action on and in the s.p.a.ce thus filled on the world and in it, they would endlessly split up the divine actuality into infinite materiality. They would really thus have the misconception they call pantheism or all-one-doctrine, only as the necessary sequel of their misconceptions of G.o.d and the world. But to put that sort of thing, this stale gossip of oneness or ident.i.ty, on the shoulders of philosophy, shows such recklessness about justice and truth that it can only be explained through the difficulty of getting into the head thoughts and notions, i.e.
not abstract unity, but the many-shaped modes specified. If statements as to facts are put forward, and the facts in question are thoughts and notions, it is indispensable to get hold of their meaning. But even the fulfilment of this requirement has been rendered superfluous, now that it has long been a foregone conclusion that philosophy is pantheism, a system of ident.i.ty, an All-one doctrine, and that the person therefore who might be unaware of this fact is treated either as merely unaware of a matter of common notoriety, or as prevaricating for a purpose. On account of this chorus of a.s.sertions, then, I have believed myself obliged to speak at more length and exoterically on the outward and inward untruth of this alleged fact: for exoteric discussion is the only method available in dealing with the external apprehension of notions as mere facts,-by which notions are perverted into their opposite. The esoteric study of G.o.d and ident.i.ty, as of cognitions and notions, is philosophy itself.
-- 574. This notion of philosophy is the self-thinking Idea, the truth aware of itself (-- 236),-the logical system, but with the signification that it is universality approved and certified in concrete content as in its actuality. In this way the science has gone back to its beginning: its result is the logical system but as a spiritual principle: out of the presupposing judgment, in which the notion was only implicit and the beginning an immediate,-and thus out of the _appearance_ which it had there-it has risen into its pure principle and thus also into its proper medium.
-- 575. It is this appearing which originally gives the motive of the further development. The first appearance is formed by the syllogism, which is based on the Logical system as starting-point, with Nature for the middle term which couples the Mind with it. The Logical principle turns to Nature and Nature to Mind. Nature, standing between the Mind and its essence, sunders itself, not indeed to extremes of finite abstraction, nor itself to something away from them and independent,-which, as other than they, only serves as a link between them: for the syllogism is _in the Idea_ and Nature is essentially defined as a transition-point and negative factor, and as implicitly the Idea. Still the mediation of the notion has the external form of _transition_, and the science of Nature presents itself as the course of necessity, so that it is only in the one extreme that the liberty of the notion is explicit as a self-amalgamation.
-- 576. In the second syllogism this appearance is so far superseded, that that syllogism is the standpoint of the Mind itself, which-as the mediating agent in the process-presupposes Nature and couples it with the Logical principle. It is the syllogism where Mind reflects on itself in the Idea: philosophy appears as a subjective cognition, of which liberty is the aim, and which is itself the way to produce it.
-- 577. The third syllogism is the Idea of philosophy, which has self-knowing reason, the absolutely-universal, for its middle term: a middle, which divides itself into Mind and Nature, making the former its presupposition, as process of the Idea"s subjective activity, and the latter its universal extreme, as process of the objectively and implicitly existing Idea. The self-judging of the Idea into its two appearances (---- 575, 576) characterises both as its (the self-knowing reason"s) manifestations: and in it there is a unification of the two aspects:-it is the nature of the fact, the notion, which causes the movement and development, yet this same movement is equally the action of cognition.
The eternal Idea, in full fruition of its essence, eternally sets itself to work, engenders and enjoys itself as absolute Mind.