Pure thought is likewise one form of inwardness; it also approaches absolute existence and finds itself justified in apprehending the same. The philosophy of modern times proceeds from the principle which ancient philosophy had reached, the standpoint of actual self-consciousness—it has as principle the spirit that is present to itself; it brings the standpoint of the Middle Ages, the diversity between what is thought and the existent universe, into opposition, and it has to do with the dissolution of this same opposition. The main interest hence is, not so much the thinking of the objects in their truth, as the thinking and understanding of the objects, the thinking this unity itself, which is really the being conscious of a presupposed object. The getting rid of the formal culture of the logical understanding and the monstrosities of which it was composed, was more essential than the extension of it: investigation in such a case becomes dissipated and diffused, and passes into the false infinite. The general points of view which in modern philosophy we reach are hence somewhat as follows:— 1. The concrete form of thought which we have here to consider on its own account, really appears as subjective with the reflection of implicitude, so that this has an antithesis in existence; and the interest is then altogether found in grasping the reconciliation of this opposition in its highest existence, _i.e._ in the most abstract extremes. This highest severance is the opposition between thought and Being, the comprehending of whose unity from this time forward constitutes the interest of all philosophies. Here thought is more independent, and thus we now abandon its unity with theology; it separates itself therefrom, just as with the Greeks it separated itself from mythology, the popular religion, and did not until the time of the Alexandrians seek out these forms again and fill the mythological conceptions with the form of thought. The bond remains, but for this reason it is clearly implicit: theology throughout is merely what philosophy is, for this last is simply thought respecting it. It does not help theology to strive against philosophy, or to say that it wishes to know nothing about it, and that philosophic maxims are thus to be set aside. It has always to do with the thought that it brings along with it, and these its subjective conceptions, its home and private metaphysics, are thus frequently a quite uncultured, uncritical thought—the thought of the street. These general conceptions are, indeed, connected with particular subjective conviction, and this last is said to prove the Christian content to be true in a sense all its own; but these thoughts which constitute the criterion are merely the reflections and opinions which float about the surface of the time. Thus, when thought comes forth on its own account, we thereby separate ourselves from theology; we shall, however, consider one other in whom both are still in unity.