Spirit, which in like manner only in thus witnessing produces itself as Absolute Spirit. As knowledge, self-consciousness has an object; as essence it is Absolute Object, and for self-consciousness in so far as it is free this is none other than the witness of the Spirit. Spirit becomes known to self-consciousness only in its freedom, therefore only in so far as this knowledge is free knowledge is the unity of self-consciousness present, and the absolute content is substantial unity, and this means that singularity is simply abrogated, or rather determined as universal in opposition to what is singular, so that the latter exists as a mere semblance only. “I”—this empirical existence—from which Essence is still certainly different, is just what is void of essence.
Subjective consciousness itself, however, is a limited, determinate consciousness, Spirit as particular, or in a special form. For Spirit in this special form, for Spirit with a determinate character, truth too exists only in this definite mode. According as the subjective spirit is constituted, so too is objective truth constituted for it.
But in God consciousness and knowledge are inherent. These are a content, and the form which implies that this content is the object of consciousness is inseparable from it. Here we have to do with Spirit in a particular or special form, and at the progressive stages of the development of Spirit faith modifies itself and adopts a different kind of content. Thus we do right to speak to a child of God its Creator, and in this way the child forms an idea of God as of some Higher Being; this is grasped by the consciousness in early years, but only in a limited manner; and the foundation thus laid is then further extended and broadened. The One Spirit is in fact the substantial foundation; this is the spirit of a people, as it takes a definite shape in the individual periods of the history of the world. It is the national spirit. This constitutes the substantial foundation in the individual; each person is born in his own nation and belongs to the
