external fashion; but, on the contrary, the action, the developed life-force of the Absolute Spirit, is itself an eternal life; it is a development and a carrying back of this development into itself.
Put more definitely, what is involved in this idea is that the universal Spirit, the Whole which this Spirit is, posits itself together with its three characteristics or determinations, develops itself, realises itself, and that only at the end we have in a completed form what constitutes at the same time its presupposition. It exists at first as a Whole, it pre-posits or presupposes itself, and exists likewise only at the end. Spirit has thus to be considered in the three forms or elements in which it posits itself.
The three forms indicated are: eternal Being in and with itself, the form of Universality; the form of manifestation or appearance, that of Particularisation, Being for another; the form of the return from appearance into itself, absolute Singleness or individuality.
The divine Idea unfolds itself in these three forms. Spirit is divine history, the process of self-differentiation, of separation or diremption, and of the resumption of this; it is divine history, and this history is to be considered in each of these three forms.
Considered in relation to the subjective consciousness, they may further be defined as follows. The first form is the element of thought. In pure thought God is as He is in-and-for-Himself, is revealed, but He has not yet reached the stage of manifestation or appearance, He is God in His eternal essence, God abiding with Himself and yet revealed. According to the second form He exists in the element of the popular or figurative idea, in the element of particularisation. Consciousness here takes up an attitude of reserve in reference to the “Other,” and this represents the stage of appearance or manifestation. The third element is that of subjectivity as such. This subjectivity is partly immediate, and takes
