§ 381. From our point of view Mind has for its _presupposition_ Nature, of which it is the truth, and for that reason its _absolute prius_. In this its truth Nature is vanished, and mind has resulted as the “Idea” entered on possession of itself. Here the subject and object of the Idea are one—either is the intelligent unity, the notion. This identity is _absolute negativity_—for whereas in Nature the intelligent unity has its objectivity perfect but externalised, this self-externalisation has been nullified and the unity in that way been made one and the same with itself. Thus at the same time it is this identity only so far as it is a return out of nature. § 382. For this reason the essential, but formally essential, feature of mind is Liberty: i.e. it is the notion’s absolute negativity or self-identity. Considered as this formal aspect, it _may_ withdraw itself from everything external and from its own externality, its very existence; it can thus submit to infinite _pain_, the negation of its individual immediacy: in other words, it can keep itself affirmative in this negativity and possess its own identity. All this is possible so long as it is considered in its abstract self-contained universality. § 383. This universality is also its determinate sphere of being. Having a being of its own, the universal is self-particularising, whilst it still remains self-identical. Hence the special mode of mental being is “_manifestation_.” The spirit is not some one mode or meaning which finds utterance or externality only in a form distinct from itself: it does not manifest or reveal _something_, but its very mode and meaning is this revelation. And thus in its mere possibility Mind is at the same moment an infinite, “absolute,” _actuality_. § 384. _Revelation_, taken to mean the revelation of the _abstract_ Idea, is an unmediated transition to Nature which _comes_ to be. As Mind is free, its manifestation is to _set forth_ Nature as _its_ world; but because it is reflection, it, in thus setting forth its world, at the same time _presupposes_ the world as a nature independently existing. In the intellectual sphere to reveal is thus to create a world as its being—a being in which the mind procures the _affirmation_ and _truth_ of its freedom.