AND ITS SELF-CONSERVATION. 237 



with the utter loss of all form or character. On the con- 

 trary, one form vanishes only as another arises. And the 

 dissolution of one structure goes hand in hand with the 

 integration of equally definite, though it may be more or 

 less complex,, forms. 



It is thus alone, indeed, that change involving the 

 existence of finite things is possible. But it is also pre- 

 cisely through this absolute interfusion of the positive 

 and the negative phases of its activity that the World- 

 Energy as spirit proves itself to be the genuine, concrete 

 Infinite. By the positive exertion of itself as energy, it 

 negates absolutely the abstract phase of infinitude implied 

 in its mere self-identity, while through the fact of its 

 perpetually self-emphasizing individuality as the truth of 

 all multiplicity it negates the (logically) first negation, 

 and shows itself to be possessed of true infinitude in the 

 form of absolute, infinitely manifold self -reference or 

 self-relation. Its self-affirmation is its self-negation. 

 But its self-negation is its self-differentiation or self- 

 realization, the process of unfolding its absolute, self- 

 sufficing wholeness and self-dependence. 



As self -particularized universality, and hence as abso- 

 lutely concrete individuality, the absolute Spirit (which 

 we have found the World-Energy to be) is, as we have 

 just seen, absolutely self-sufficing, and hence spontaneous. 

 It is a self -realizing system. It is thus in its very nature 

 absolutely self-consistent. Its self-negation is such only 

 in the sense of self -differentiation or self-realization. It 

 is absolute self-affirmation. 



But this it can be only as involving consciousness; for 

 this is the very essence and truth of self -relation. As a 

 perfect, self-realizing system, whose fundamental charac- 



