moments of the Notion, but are themselves the two sides of the difference. In Spirit the moment of differentiation is that which is termed consciousness. Differentiation is the positing of two, which have no other quality attaching to their difference than just those moments themselves. The differentiation, which thereby becomes a relation, has therefore the following as its two sides: as the one side it has just that solid substantial unity of the Idea, God as existent, as unity relating itself to itself; and as the other the differentiation, which, as consciousness, is the side for which the solid unity exists, and which therefore determines itself as the finite side.
Thus is God determined as existing for consciousness, as Object, as appearing or manifesting Himself. Essentially, however, He is as spiritual unity in His substantiality, not merely determined as appearing, but as appearing to Himself, therefore so appearing to what is other than Himself, that in that appearing He manifests Himself to Himself.
This differentiation is therefore itself to be conceived of as returning into absolute affirmation, or abrogating itself, as differentiation which just as eternally abrogates itself and becomes the truth of manifestation.
We first of all distinguished the substantial unity from the differentiation itself, and then designated the return of the second moment into the first as the third moment. Now, however, those two moments themselves (in accordance with the character of the content of the relation) are only to be taken as one side of the relation, so that the two only make up the one determinate character of that relation, and the second moment becomes that which appeared as the third. It is these two moments which, from the point of view of the notion, constitute that which in a general way is to be considered as the reality of the Idea; the one as the relation, into which the notion divides itself up, the consciousness, the appearing of God; and the other as the self-abrogation of this only
