It is at this point that mind once more rises above the ruin, and again goes forth from its subjectivity to the objective, but at the same time to an intellectual objectivity, which does not appear in the outward form of individual objects, nor in the form of duties and individual morality, but which, as absolute objectivity, is torn of mind and of the veritable truth. Or, in other words, we see here on the one hand the return to God, on the other hand the manifestation of God, as He comes before the human mind absolutely in His truth. This forms the transition to the mind’s restoration, by the fact of thought, which had conceived itself only subjectively, now becoming objective to itself. Thus in the Roman world the necessity became more and more keenly felt of forsaking the evil present, this ungodly, unrighteous, immoral world, and withdrawing into mind, in order here to seek what there no longer can be found. For in the Greek world the joy of spiritual activity has flown away, and sorrow for the breach that has been made has taken its place. These philosophies are thus not only moments in the development of reason, but also in that of humanity; they are forms in which the whole condition of the world expresses itself through thought. But in other forms some measure of contempt for nature here began to show itself, inasmuch as nature is no longer anything for itself, seeing that her powers are merely the servants of man, who, like a magician, can make them yield obedience, and be subservient to his wishes. Up to this time oracles had been given through the medium of trees, animals, &c., in which divine knowledge, as knowledge of the eternal, was not distinguished from knowledge of the contingent. Now it no longer is the gods that work their wonders, but men, who, setting at defiance the necessities of nature, bring about in the same that which is inconsistent with nature as such. To this belief in miracle, which is at the same time disbelief in present nature, there is thus allied a disbelief in the past, or a disbelief that history was just what it was. All the actual history and mythology of Romans, Greeks, Jews, even single words and letters, receive a different meaning; they are inwardly broken asunder, having an inner significance which is their essence, and an empty literal meaning, which is their appearance. Mankind living in actuality have here forgotten altogether how to see and to hear, and have indeed lost all their understanding of the present. Sensuous truth is no longer accepted by them; they constantly deceive us, for they are incapable of comprehending what is real, since it has lost all meaning for their minds. Others forsake the world, because in it they can now find nothing, the real they discover in themselves alone. As all the gods meet together in one Pantheon, so all religions rush into one, all modes of representation are absorbed in one; it is this, that self-consciousness—an actual human being—is