From this it appears that we have divided the world into three large slices—the Natural, the Real, and the Actual—with gravity for one and self-determination for the other extreme, and mediation between them.
III.
In my last, I gave you some general terms, and the sense in which I intend to use them. I also gave you a reason why I should use them, together with an illustration. But I gave you no reason why I used these and no others—or I did not advance anything to show that there are objects to which they necessarily apply. I only take it for granted that there are some objects presented to your observation and mine, that gravitate or weigh something, and others that do not. To each I have applied as nearly as I could the ordinary terms. Now this procedure, although very unphilosophical, I can justify only by reminding you of the object of these letters.
If we now listen again to the chant of the invisible choir,
“Thou hast destroyed it,
The beautiful world,”
it will be obvious that this can refer only to the world of mediation and self-determination, to the world of spirit, of self-conscious intelligence, for the world of gravitation is not so easily affected. But how is this—how is it that the world of self-conscious intelligence is so easily affected, is so dependent upon the individual man? This can be seen only by examining its genesis.
In the genesis of Spirit we have three stages—manifestation, realization, and actualization. The first of these, upon which the other two are dependent and sequent, falls in the individual man. For, in him it is that Reason manifests itself before it can realize, or embody itself in this or that political, social, or moral institution. And it is not merely necessary that it should so manifest itself in the individual; it must also realize itself in these institutions before it can actualize itself in Art, Religion, and Philosophy. For in this actualization it is absolutely dependent upon the former two stages of its genesis for a content. From this it appears that Art shows what Religion teaches, and what Philosophy comprehends; or that Art, Religion, and Philosophy have the same content. Nor is it difficult to perceive why this world of spirit or self-conscious intelligence is so dependent upon the individual man.
Again, in the sphere of manifestation and reality, this content, the self-conscious intelligence, is the self-consciousness of an individual, a nation, or an age. And art, in the sphere of actuality, is this or that work of art, this poem, that painting, or yonder piece of sculpture, with the self-consciousness of this or that individual, nation, or age, for its content. Moreover, the particularity (the individual, nation, or age) of the content constitutes the individuality of the work of Art. And not only this, but this particularity of the self-consciousness furnishes the very contradiction itself with the development and solution of which the work of art is occupied. For the self-consciousness which constitutes the content, being the self consciousness of an individual, a nation, or an age, instead of being self-conscious intelligence in its pure universality, contains in that very particularity the contradiction which, in the sphere of manifestation and reality, constitutes the collision, conflict, and solution.[[17]]
Now, if we look back upon the facts stated, we have the manifestation, the realization, and the actualization of self-conscious intelligence as the three spheres or stages in the process which evolves and involves the entire activity of man, both practical and theoretical. It is also obvious that the realization of self-conscious intelligence in the family, society, and the state, and its actualization in Art, Religion, and Philosophy, depend in their genesis upon its manifestation in the individual. Hence a denial of the possibility of this manifestation is a denial of the possibility of the realization and actualization also.