1. _The Universal Principle._ The logical principle of Anaxagoras was that he recognized the _νοῦς_ as the simple, absolute essence of the world. The simplicity of the _νοῦς_ is not a Being but a universality which is distinguished from itself, though in such a way that the distinction is immediately sublated and the identity is set forth for itself. This universal for itself, sundered, exists in purity only as thought; it exists also in nature as objective existence, but in that case no longer purely for itself, but as having particularity as an immediate in it. Space and time are, for example, the most ideal, universal facts in nature as such, but there is no pure space, no pure time and motion any more than any pure matter—for this universal is immediately defined space, air, earth, &c. In thought, when I say, I am I, or I = I, I certainly distinguish something from me, but the pure unity remains; there is no movement but a distinction which is not distinguished, or the being-for-me. And in all that I think, if the thought has a definite content, it is my thought: I am thus known to myself in this object. This universal which thus exists for itself and the individual, or thought and being, thus, however, come into definite opposition. Here the speculative unity of this universal with the individual should be considered as it is posited as absolute unity, but the comprehension of the Notion itself is certainly not found with the ancients. We need not expect a pure Notion such as one of an understanding realizing itself into a system, organized as a universe.