PART II
DEFINITE RELIGION
DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT
When we speak of definite religion, it is implied, in the first place, that religion generally is taken as a genus, and the definite religions as species. This relation of genus to species is, from one point of view, quite legitimate, as, for instance, when in other sciences we pass over from the universal to the particular; but there the particular is only understood in an empirical manner; it is a matter of experience that this or the other animal, this or that kind of justice exists. In philosophical science it is not allowable to proceed in this way. The particular cannot advance towards the universal; on the contrary, it is the universal itself which resolves upon determination, upon particularisation; the Notion differentiates itself, makes a determination which originates with itself or is its own act. Simultaneously with determinateness in general, existence or definite Being and essential connection with an “Other” are posited. That which is determined is for an “Other,” and what is undetermined is not there at all. That for which religion exists—the definite existence of religion—is consciousness. Religion has its reality as consciousness. What is to be understood by the realisation of the Notion is that the content is determined by means of it, both as regards the fact and the manner of its existence for consciousness. Our course of procedure is as follows: We began with the consideration of the notion or conception
