AND ITS SELF-CONSERVATION. 245 



present. Whence its self-externalization does not consist 

 in its expanding itself outward from, some special center 

 in space until it becomes indefinitely diffused through 

 space. It does not go out into space from some where 

 that is yet not in space. Eather its logically first (that 

 is, simplest) relation to space is its universal occupancy 

 of space. Its externalization consists in its unfolding 

 special forms of existence from its own internality; tliat 

 is, from its own subjectivity or spontaneity. And pri- 

 marily subjectivity or spontaneity is Spirit in that sphere 

 of relations which is wholly independent of space-rela- 

 tions, and hence, thus far cannot be rightly thought of 

 as located in, or in any way related to, space at all. 

 Thus internality is here a term equivalent to subjectivity 

 or spontaneity. And this is in strict truth its only 

 meaning. As ordinarily applied, it represents a vanish- 

 ing, wholly illusive element. For, as regards space- 

 related objects, it is only necessary to penetrate to the 

 internal in them in order to prove that "internal" to 

 be wholly external; and this to infinity. 



The internal, then, is not the infinite energy of the 

 universe focused in some point in space (and hence non- 

 existent) but rather it is the 'essence or truth of things, 

 the spontaneity of spirit, the logically first phase of the 

 realization of which, as just indicated, is the universal 

 occupancy of space. The world of internality or of 

 thought unfolds itself, in its own less adequate phases, as 

 the world of externality or the world of things in space. 



The self-externalization of the Absolute as Spirit, 

 then, presents the infinitely extended as its (logically) 

 first phase. The internal in its self-realization proves 

 to be also external. The absolute Subject in its own 



