In this charge of deficiency it is implied that this very process of thought is to be our own elevation; that we are not to behave as if we were contemplating a connection of external determinations, but that it is the feeling, believing spirit, Spirit in fact, which is to rise or be elevated. Spiritual movement, the movement of our self, of our knowledge, is to be in it too, and we miss that when we speak of it as an external connection of determinations.
The elevation and the movement of the objective content, however, actually come to form one process, namely, in Thought. I, in so far as I think, am myself this passing over, or transition, this spiritual movement, and as this movement we have now to consider Thought. To begin with, however, it is empirical observation and reflexion.
(b.) Mediated knowledge as Observation and as Reflection.
Those who take up this standpoint, which indeed is peculiar to the present time, proceed in accordance with the methods of empirical psychology, accept what is found in ordinary consciousness, and accept it as it is found there, observe the phenomena, and place outside of consciousness what is the Infinite in consciousness.
Religion, from this point of view, is the consciousness men have of a Higher, of something beyond the present, outside of themselves, and existing above themselves; that is to say, consciousness finds itself dependent, finite, and in this its experience it is in so far consciousness, that it presupposes an Other, on which it is dependent, and which is held by it to be its true Essence, since it is itself characterised as the negative or finite.
This observation or reflection, if we look at it in the first place in its general form, is seen to develop itself in the following shape:—
In consciousness, in so far as I have knowledge of an object, and am reflected into myself as in contrast to it, I
