indeed the absolutely True, from which all proceeds, and into which all returns, upon which all is dependent, and beside which nothing has absolute true self-sustained existence. This, then, is what constitutes the beginning.
This beginning is, scientifically, still abstract. The heart may be ever so full of this idea, still in science it is not with what is in the heart that we have to do, but with what is definitely considered as object for consciousness, and more strictly for thinking consciousness which has attained to the form of thought. To give this fulness the form of thought, of the Notion, is the special work of the Philosophy of Religion.
a. The beginning as abstract, as the first content, Universality namely, has thus, as it were, as yet a subjective standing, implying that the Universal is universal for the beginning only, and does not continue in this condition of universality. The beginning of the content is itself to be conceived of in such a way that, while in all further developments of this content, this Universal will show itself to be absolutely concrete, rich in matter, and full of content, we at the same time do not pass beyond this universality; that this universality, though in a sense we leave it behind so far as the form is concerned, inasmuch as it undergoes a definite development, nevertheless maintains its position as the absolute, permanent foundation, and is not to be taken as a mere subjective beginning.
In so far as He is the Universal, God is for us from the point of view of development, what is shut up within itself, what is in absolute unity with itself. If we say God is that which is shut up within itself, in using such an expression we are thinking of a development which we expect to take place; but the undeveloped condition which we have called the Universality of God, is not in regard to the content itself to be taken as an abstract Universality, outside of which, and as opposed to which, the particular has an independent existence.
