from each other. At one time, for example, I accentuate my empirical, finite consciousness, and place myself in opposition to infiniteness; at another I exclude myself from myself, condemn myself, and give the preponderance to the infinite consciousness. The middle term contains nothing else than the characteristics of both the extremes. They are not pillars of Hercules, which confront each other sharply. I am, and it is in myself and for myself that this conflict and this conciliation take place. In myself, I as infinite am against or in contrast with myself as finite, and as finite consciousness I stand over against my thought as infinite. I am the feeling, the perception, the idea alike of this unity and this conflict, and am what holds together the conflicting elements, the effort put forth in this act of holding together, and represent the labour of heart and soul to obtain the mastery over this opposition.
I am thus the relation of these two sides, which are not abstract determinations, as “finite and infinite.” On the contrary, each is itself totality. Each of the two extremes is itself “I,” what relates them; and the holding together, the relating, is itself this which is at once in conflict with itself, and brings itself to unity in the conflict. Or, to put it differently, I am the conflict, for the conflict is just this antagonism, which is not any indifference of the two as different, but is their being bound together. I am not one of those taking part in the strife, but I am both the combatants, and am the strife itself. I am the fire and the water which touch each other, and am the contact and union of what flies apart, and this very contact itself is this double, essentially conflicting relation, as the relation of what is now separated, severed, and now reconciled and in unity with itself.
As representing the forms of the relation of the two extremes, we shall make ourselves acquainted with (1) Feeling; (2) Sense-perception;[1] (3) Idea,[2] or ordinary thought.
