abstractly their Being as Being. This Being exists in common with me, but the object of my knowledge is so constituted that I can also withdraw its Being from it; I represent it to myself, believe in it, but this in which I believe is a Being in my consciousness only. Consequently, universality and this quality of immediateness fall asunder, and must of necessity do so. This reflection must necessarily occur to one, for we are two, and must be separate; otherwise we would be one; that is, a characteristic must be attributed to the one which does not belong to the other. Such a characteristic is Being; “I am;” the Other, the object, therefore is not. I take Being to myself, to my side; I do not doubt my own existence, and on that account it drops away in the case of the Other. Since the Being here is only the Being of the object in such a way that the object is only this definitely known Being, there is wanting to it essential Being, Being in and for itself, and it receives this only in consciousness. It is merely known as known Being, not as having Being in and for itself. The Ego only exists, not the object. I may indeed doubt everything, but my own existence I cannot doubt, for “I” is that which doubts, “I” is the doubt itself. If the doubt becomes the object of doubt, the doubter doubts of doubt itself, and thus the doubt vanishes. “I” is immediate relation to oneself; Being is in the “I.” Immediateness thus gets a fixed place over against Universality, and is seen to belong to my side. In the “I,” Being is simply in myself; I can abstract from everything, but I cannot abstract from thought, for the abstracting is itself thought, it is the activity of the Universal, simple reference to self. Being is exemplified in the very act of abstraction. I can indeed destroy myself, but that is the liberty to abstract from my existence. “I am,”—in the “I” the “am” is already included.
Now, in the act of exhibiting the Object—God—as He who is Being, we have taken Being to ourselves, the
