The first of these characteristics thus means that Man is by nature good, that his universal substantial essence is good; the second characteristic is the opposite of this. This, then, to begin with, is the nature of these contrary propositions, so far as we are concerned, and so far as the outward way of looking at things is concerned. The next step is to perceive that we do not merely thus reflect upon things, but that Man has an independent knowledge of himself, and knows how he is constituted and what is his essential character.
We have, to start with, the one proposition: Man is by nature good, what has no element of division; thus he has no need of reconciliation, and if reconciliation is not at all necessary, then the course of development we are considering here and this whole part of the subject are superfluous.
To say that Man is by nature good amounts substantially to saying that he is potentially Spirit, rationality, that he has been created in the image of God; God is the Good, and Man as Spirit is the reflection of God, he is the Good potentially. It is just on this very proposition and on it alone that the possibility of his reconciliation rests; the difficulty, the ambiguity is, however, in the potentiality.
Man is potentially good—but when that is said everything is not said; it is just in this potentiality that the element of one-sidedness lies. Man is good potentially, i.e., he is good only in an inward way, good so far as his notion or conception is concerned, and for this very reason not good so far as his actual nature is concerned.
Man, inasmuch as he is Spirit, must actually be, be for himself, what he truly is; physical Nature remains in the condition of potentiality, it is potentially the Notion, but the Notion does not in it attain to independent Being, to Being-for-self. It is just in the very fact that Man is only potentially good that the defect of his nature lies.
The potentiality of Nature is represented by the laws
