_γγ_. We have still to remark in the third place, that Religion, as such, does not merely form its representations after the manner of art; and also that Poetry likewise contains actual thoughts. In the case of the poets whose art has speech as medium, we find all through deep universal thought regarding reality; these are more explicitly expressed in the Indian Religion, but with the Indians everything is mixed up. Hence it is said that such races have also had a Philosophy proper to themselves; but the universal thoughts of interest in Indian books limit themselves to what is most abstract, to the idea of rising up and passing away, and thus of making a perpetual round. The story of the Phœnix is well known as an example of this; it is one which took its origin in the East. We are able similarly to find thoughts about life and death and of the transition of Being into passing away; from life comes death and from death comes life; even in Being, in what is positive, the negation is already present. The negative side must indeed contain within it the positive, for all change, all the process of life is founded on this. But such reflections only occasionally come forth; they are not to be taken as being proper philosophic utterances. For Philosophy is only present when thought, as such, is made the absolute ground and root of everything else, and in these modes of representation this is not so. Philosophy does not reflect on any particular thing or object already existing as a first substratum; its content is just Thought, universal thought which must plainly come first of all; to put it otherwise, the Absolute must in Philosophy be in the form of thought. In the Greek Religion we find the thought-determination “eternal necessity;” which means an absolute and clearly universal relation. But such thought has other subjects besides; it only expresses a relation, the necessity to be the true and all-embracing Being. Thus neither must we take this form into our consideration. We might speak in that way of a philosophy of Euripides, Schiller or Goethe. But all such reflection respecting, or general modes of representing what is true, the ends of men, morality and so on, are in part only incidentally set forth, and in part they have not reached the proper form of thought, which implies that what is so expressed must be ultimate, thus constituting the Absolute. _γ. Particular theories found in Religion._