Systematic Science as the Self-Comprehension of Spirit

^'798' Absolute Knowledge is the last embodiment of spirit.

• It is a spirit which at once gives its complete and true content the form of self, and thereby realizes its notion.
• In doing so, it remains within its own notion.

It is spirit knowing itself in the shape of spirit, it is knowledge which comprehends through notions.

Truth is here not merely in itself absolutely identical with certainty; it has also the shape, the character of certainty of self; or in its existence – i.e. for spirit knowing it – it is in the form of knowledge of itself. Truth is the content, which in religion is not as yet at one with its certainty.

This identification, however, is secured when the content has received the shape of self. By this means, what constitutes the very essence, viz. the notion, comes to have the nature of existence, i.e. assumes the form of what is objective to consciousness. Spirit, appearing before consciousness in this element of existence, or, what is here the same thing, produced by it in this element, is systematic Science.

^'799' The nature, moments, and process of this knowledge have then shown themselves to be such that this knowledge is pure self-existence of self-consciousness.

It is ego, which is this ego and no other, and at the same time, immediately is mediated, or sublated, universal ego. It has a content, which it distinguishes from itself; for it is pure negativity, or self-diremption; it is consciousness.

This content in its distinction is itself the ego, for it is the process of superseding itself, or the same pure negativity which constitutes ego. Ego is in it, qua distinguished, reflected into itself; only then is the content comprehended (begriffen) when ego in its otherness is still at home with itself.

More precisely stated, this content is nothing else than the very process just spoken of; for the content is the spirit which traverses the whole range of its own being, and does this for itself qua spirit, by the fact that it possesses the shape of the notion in its objectivity.

^'800' Science does not appear in time and in reality until spirit has arrived at this stage of being conscious regarding itself.

Qua spirit which knows what it is, it does not, exist before, and is not to be found at all till after the completion of the task of mastering and constraining its imperfect embodiment – the task of procuring for its consciousness the shape of its inmost essence, and in this manner bringing its self-consciousness level with its consciousness.

Spirit in and for itself is, when distinguished into its separate moments, self-existent knowledge, comprehension (Begreifen) in general, which as such has not yet reached the substance, or is not in itself absolute knowledge.

^'801' In actual reality, the knowing substance exists, is there earlier than its form, earlier than the shape of the notion.

For the substance is the undeveloped inherent nature, the ground and notion in its inert simplicity, the state of inwardness or the self of spirit which is not yet there. What is there, what does exist, is in the shape of still unexpressed simplicity, the undeveloped immediate, or the object of imagining (Vorstellen) consciousness in general.

Because knowledge (Erkennen) is a spiritual state of consciousness, which admits as real what essentially is only so far as this is a being for the self and a being of the self or a notion – knowledge has on this account merely a barren object to begin with, in contrast to which the substance and the consciousness of this substance are richer in content.

The revelation which substance has in such a consciousness is, in fact, concealment; for the substance is here still self-less existence and nothing but certainty of self is revealed.

To begin with, therefore, it is only the abstract moments that belong to self-consciousness concerning the substance. But since these moments are pure activities and must move forward by their very nature, self-consciousness enriches itself till it has torn from consciousness the entire substance, and absorbed into itself the entire structure of the substance with all its constituent elements.

Since this negative attitude towards objectivity is positive as well, establishes and fixes the content, it goes on till it has produced these elements out of itself and thereby reinstated them once more as objects of consciousness.

In the notion, knowing itself as notion, the moments thus make their appearance prior to the whole in its complete fulfilment; the movement of these moments is the process by which the whole comes into being. In consciousness, on the other hand, the whole – but not as comprehended conceptually – is prior to the moments.

Time is just the notion definitely existent, and presented to consciousness in the form of empty intuition.

Hence spirit necessarily appears in time, and it appears in time so long as it does not grasp its pure notion, i.e. so long as it does not annul time.

Time is the pure self in external form, apprehended in intuition, and not grasped and understood by the self, it is the notion apprehended only through intuition.

When this notion grasps itself, it supersedes its time character, (conceptually) comprehends intuition, and is intuition comprehended and comprehending.

Time therefore appears as spirit’s destiny and necessity, where spirit is not yet complete within itself; it is the necessity compelling spirit to enrich the share self-consciousness has in consciousness, to put into motion the immediacy of the inherent nature (which is the form in which the substance is present in consciousness); or, conversely, to realize and make manifest what is inherent, regarded as inward and immanent, to make manifest that which is at first within – i.e. to vindicate it for spirit’s certainty of self.