of objective content ceases to hold fast by itself, the abstract determinateness of the notion over against its fulfilment is cancelled and done away with. Its selfconsciousness attains the form of universality ; and what remains is its true notion, the notion that has attained its realisation the notion in its truth, i.e. in unity with its externalisation. It is knowledge of pure knowledge, not in the sense of an abstract essence such as duty is, but in the sense of an essential being which is this particular knowledge, this individual pure self-consciousness which is at the same time an object ; for the object is the self -existing self. This notion obtained its fulfilment partly from the acts performed by the spirit that is sure of itself, partly from religion. In the latter it obtained the absolute content qua content, or in the form of an ideal presentation or of otherness for consciousness. On the other hand, in the first the form is just the self, for that mode contains the active practical spirit sure of itself ; the self accomplishes the life of Absolute Spirit. This mode, as we see, is that simple notion, which however gives up its eternal inner Being, takes upon itself objective existence, or acts. The power of diremption or of coming forth out of its inwardness lies in the purity of the notion, for this purity is absolute abstraction or negativity. In the same way the notion finds its element of reality, or the objective being it contains, in pure knowledge itself ; for this knowledge is simple immediacy, which is being and existence as well as essence, the former negative thought, the latter positive thought. This existence, finally, is just as much that state of reflection into self which comes out of pure existence both qua existence and qua duty and this is the state of evil. This process of " going into self " constitutes the opposition lying in the notion, and is thus the appearance on the scene of pure knowledge of the essence, a knowledge giving rise to no action and no reality. But to make its appearance in this opposition is to participate in it ; pure knowledge of essence has inherently relinquished its simplicity, for it is the diremption or negativity which constitutes the notion. So far as this process of diremption is the process of becoming self-centred, it is the principle of evil : so far as it is the inherently essential, it is the principle of constant goodness. Now what in the first instance takes place implicitly and inherently is at once objectively for consciousness, and is duplicated as well is both for consciousness and