It will thus be seen that the _Absolute_ is, with Hegel, the sum of all actual and possible existence; "nothing is true and real except so far as it forms an element of the Absolute Spirit."[45] "What kind of an Absolute Being," he asks, "is that which does not contain in itself all that is actual, even evil included?"[46] The Absolute, therefore, in Hegel's conception, does not allow of any existence out of itself. It is the _unity_ of the finite and the infinite, the eternal and the temporal, the ideal and the real, the subject and the object. And it is not only the unity of these opposites so as to exclude all difference, but it contains in itself, all the differences and opposites as elements of its being; otherwise the distinctions would stand over against absolute as a limit, and the absolute would cease to be absolute.
God is, therefore, according to Hegel, "no motionless, eternally self-identical and unchangeable being, but a living, eternal _process_ of absolute self-existence. This process consists in the eternal self-distinction, or antithesis, and equally self-reconciliation or synthesis of those opposites which enter, as necessary elements, into the constitution of the Divine Being. This _self-evolution_, whereby the absolute enters into antithesis, and returns to itself again, is the eternal _self-actualization_ of its being, and which at once constitutes the beginning, middle, and end, as in the circle, where the beginning is at the same time the end, and the end the beginning."[47]
[Footnote 44: Morell, "Hist, of Philos., p. 461."]
[Footnote 45: "Philos. of Religion," p. 204.]
[Footnote 47: Herzog's _Real-Encyc._, art. "Hegelian Philos.," by Ulrici.]
The whole philosophy of Hegel consists in the development of this idea of God by means of his, so-called, dialectic method, which reflects the objective life-process of the Absolute, and is, in fact, identical with it; for God, says he, "is only the Absolute Intelligence in so far as he knows himself to be the Absolute Intelligence, _and this he knows only in science_ [dialectics], _and this knowledge alone constitutes his true existence._"[48] This life-process of the Absolute has three "moments." It may be considered as the idea _in itself_--bare, naked, undetermined, unconscious idea; as the idea _out of itself_, in its objective form, or in its differentiation; and, finally, as the idea _in itself_, and _for itself_, in its regressive or reflective form. This movement of thought gives, _first_, bare, naked, indeterminate thought, or thought in the mere antithesis of Being and non-Being; _secondly_, thought externalizing itself in nature; and, _thirdly_, thought returning to itself, and knowing itself in mind, or consciousness. Philosophy has, accordingly, three corresponding divisions:--1. LOGIC, which here is identical with metaphysics; 2. PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE; 3. PHILOSOPHY OF MIND.