The same thing is to be seen in the differentiation and the gradation of life: everywhere a movement towards self-consciousness begins, but the emergence of this movement forces an antithesis into prominence, and life is completely transformed into work and conflict. Thought cannot be satisfied with representing the world as a work of art or as a process; thought must seek self-consciousness in the world. This it finds in the emergence of an independent spiritual life and in reality's coming-to-itself; at the same time the difference between spirit and nature becomes more pronounced, and all the divergences in life increase. Men can find their highest unity neither in joining together so as to form a whole as a work of art, nor in a system of progressive increase of force. Neither alone could prevent society from becoming spiritually destitute, nor could both together. Society also needs a self-consciousness and acquires it only through the development of a spiritual content and spiritual character; but this must be won by continual struggle from the medley which constitutes the general condition of social life. Again, the individual does not attain a content for his life through an immediate combination of his powers so as to form a harmonious whole, or through increasing them without limit; the individual also must by activity concentrate his life and so gain the basis of a new world: never is he in his life, as a whole, personality and spiritual individuality. True, there lies within him the potentiality to become such a spiritual individuality, and this potentiality may be transformed in his own activity; and the existence thus acquired can affect the rest of life, arousing and elevating it. Thus the ideal is set completely in the distance; it is seen that we do not live our life from a given basis, but that, on the contrary, we have first to acquire the basis and to preserve it by continuous work; it is not a particular direction of life, but a genuine life itself and with this a spiritual being that is in question. We appear, therefore, more imperfect than ever before. But in this connection the imperfection itself is a witness that important tasks are set before us, and that superior forces rule in us. In the midst of all that is obscure it cannot fail to be recognised that there is a movement towards the development of a new self-conscious reality above the capacity and the interests of mere man. This movement has been manifested in great historical achievements, in the formation of fruitful systems of life which at the same time were developments of the life of the individual. It has brought forth ever new creations; now it sets before us the task of developing a new system of life which does complete justice to self-consciousness, and in accordance with its main idea must also transform all individual aspects and departments. Where we recognise so much to do, we are certainly far removed from opinion and pretence.