y which freedom is realized is the free
development of its successive stages. The subjective will is a merely
formal determination--a _carte blanche_--not including what it is that
is willed. Only the rational will is that universal principle which
independently determines and unfolds its own being and develops its
successive elemental phases as organic members. Of this Gothic-cathedral
architecture the ancients knew nothing.

At an earlier stage of the discussion we established the two elemental
considerations: First, the _idea_ of freedom as the absolute and final
aim; secondly, the _means_ for realizing it, i. e., the subjective side
of knowledge and will, with its life, movement, and activity. We then
recognized the State as the moral whole and the reality of freedom, and
consequently as the objective unity of these two elements. For although
we make this distinction in two aspects for our consideration, it must
be remarked that they are intimately connected, and that their
connection is involved in the idea of each when examined separately. We
have, on the one hand, recognized the Idea in the definite form of
freedom, conscious of and willing itself, having itself alone as its
object, involving at the same time the pure and simple Idea of Reason
and, likewise, what we have called Subject, self-consciousness, Spirit,
actually existing in the world. If, on the other hand, we consider
subjectivity, we find that subjective knowledge and will is thought. But
by the very act of thoughtful cognition and volition, I will the
universal object--the substance of absolute Reason. We observe,
therefore, an essential union between the objective side--the Idea, and
the subjective side--the personality that conceives and wills it. The
objective existence of this union is the State, which is therefore the
basis and centre of the other concrete elements of the life of a
people--of art, of law, of morals, of religion, of science. All the
activity of Spirit has only this object--the becoming conscious of this
union, i. e., of its own freedom. Among the forms of this conscious union
_religion_ occupies the highest position. In it Spirit-rising above the
limitations of temporal and secular existence--becomes conscious of the
Absolute Spirit, and, in this consciousness of the Self-Existent Being,
renounces its individual interest; it lays this aside in devotion--a
state of mind in which it refuses to occupy itself any longer with the
lim