The fundamental truth which we shall endeavour to substantiate before everything in the matter which now immediately engages our attention is this, that man is under an obligation to make himself at peace and at home in the environment of the world; or, to put it rather differently, his individuality must live itself into Nature and all the conditions of that external world, and by doing so assert its freedom visibly. And, moreover, this must take place in such a way that these two related factors, that is, on the one side, the entirety of his inward life and the character it possesses or displays in all conditions or actions whatsoever, and, on the other, that objective entirety of external existence which confronts him, must wholly lose the appearance of two worlds which are either indifferent to or not homogeneous with[379] each other, and forthwith proclaim themselves as harmoniously related and identical in substance. This externally objective world must, in so far as it is the reality of the Ideal, surrender the semblance of its own objective self-subsistency and stubbornness, in order that its fundamental unity with that to which it supplies the external and particular embodiment may be exhibited in truth. To establish this unity with more conclusiveness we propose now to examine our subject under three different heads of discussion. _First_, we may investigate the same from the point of view that this unity which binds the two factors already defined is merely a bond which possesses _no positive reality_[380], but is merely a mysterious and secret connection both in its origin and appearance, by virtue of which our humanity is looped together with its environment. _Secondly_, however, as a deduction from the fact that it is the concrete _spiritual_ life of man and the individuality which pertains to it which constitutes the point of departure, or rather the essential content of the Ideal, we shall further examine this association, as in truth the creation of _human_ activity itself and only possible as such a creation. _Finally_, we shall prove that this unified world created by the human Spirit is itself a complete entirety, which, in the determinate form of its existence, is objectively valid, and in essential relation with which every unit of our common humanity who is actively engaged with the vital concerns of art must infallibly remain. In opening our discussion of the position we proposed first we would at once point out an important conclusion involved in it. We have here posited that the environment of the Ideal is not directly due to human activity, it can therefore only be regarded in this first step of our inquiry as something external to man, that is to say Nature. How, then, is this something outside man to be exhibited in the ideal work of art? We will discuss this at least in its more general terms, and here, too, draw attention to three aspects of importance.