225.] This process is in general terms Cognition. In Cognition in a single act the contrast is virtually superseded, as regards both the one-sidedness of subjectivity and the one-sidedness of objectivity. At first, however, the supersession of the contrast is but implicit. The process as such is in consequence immediately infected with the finitude of this sphere, and splits into the twofold movement of the instinct of reason, presented as two different movements. On the one hand it supersedes the one-sidedness of the Idea's subjectivity by receiving the existing world into itself, into subjective conception and thought; and with this objectivity, which is thus taken to be real and true, for its content it fills up the abstract certitude of itself. On the other hand, it supersedes the one-sidedness of the objective world, which is now, on the contrary, estimated as only a mere semblance, a collection of contingencies and shapes at bottom visionary. It modifies and informs that world by the inward nature of the subjective, which is here taken to be the genuine objective. The former is the instinct of science after Truth, Cognition properly so called:--the Theoretical action of the idea. The latter is the instinct of the Good to fulfil the same--the Practical activity of the idea or Volition. (α) _Cognition proper._ 226.] The universal finitude of Cognition, which lies in the one judgment, the pre-supposition of the contrast (§ 224),--a pre-supposition in contradiction of which its own act lodges protest, specialises itself more precisely on the face of its own idea. The result of that specialisation is, that its two elements receive the aspect of being diverse from each other, and, as they are at least complete, they take up the relation of 'reflection,' not of 'notion,' to one another. The assimilation of the matter, therefore, as a datum, presents itself in the light of a reception of it into categories which at the same time remain external to it, and which meet each other in the same style of diversity. Reason is active here, but it is reason in the shape of understanding. The truth which such Cognition can reach will therefore be only finite: the infinite truth (of the notion) is isolated and made transcendent, an inaccessible goal in a world of its own. Still in its external action cognition stands under the guidance of the notion, and notional principles form the secret clue to its movement. * * * * * The finitude of Cognition lies in the pre-supposition of a world already in existence, and in the consequent view of the knowing subject as a _tabula rasa._ The conception is one attributed to Aristotle; but no man is further than Aristotle from such an outside theory of Cognition. Such a style of Cognition does not recognise in itself the activity of the notion--an activity which it is implicitly, but not consciously. In its own estimation its procedure is passive. Really that procedure is active.