Everything is ultimately identity, unity with itself. But those who speak of the philosophy of Identity mean abstract Identity, unity in general, and pay no attention to that upon which alone all depends; namely, the essential nature of this unity, and whether it is defined as Substance or as Spirit. The whole of philosophy is nothing else than a study of the nature of different kinds of unity; the Philosophy of Religion, too, is a succession of unities; it is always unity, yet a unity which is always further defined and made more specific.
In the physical world there are many kinds of unity: when water and earth are brought together, this is a unity, but it is a mixture. If I bring together a base and an acid and a salt, a crystal is the result. I have water too, but I cannot see it, and there is not the slightest moisture. The unity of the water with this material is, therefore, a unity of quite a different character from that in which water and earth are mingled. What is of importance, is the difference in the character of the unity. The Unity of God is always Unity, but everything depends upon the particular nature of this Unity; this point being disregarded, that upon which everything depends is overlooked.
What we have first is this divine Universality—Spirit in its entirely undetermined Universality—for which there exists absolutely no element of difference. But upon this absolute foundation (and this we state for the moment as fact) there now appears that element of distinction which, in its spiritual character, is consciousness, and it is with this distinction that religion, as such, begins. When the absolute Universality advances to the stage of judgment, that is to say, when it proceeds to posit itself as determinateness, and God exists as Spirit for Spirit, we have reached the standpoint from which God is regarded as the object of consciousness, and Thought, which at the beginning was universal, is seen to have entered into the condition of relation and differentiation.
