At first, however, this contention is only potentially present, that is to say the incompatibility of these two sides, whose union is thus affirmed and enforced, is not yet openly present to consciousness. And this is so for the reason that it neither recognizes for itself in its universal nature the import which it seizes, nor is able to comprehend the realized form in its self-subsistent and self-exclusive existence; consequently, instead of representing to the senses both aspects in their _difference_, it is content to proceed upon the immediate appearance of _identity_ which it enforces. In this original _point of departure_ we have before us the as yet inseparable unity of the art-form and the symbolical expression it seeks after, fermenting, as it were, beneath the association of contradictory elements in mysterious guise--the unity, that is, of the real and primordial symbolism, whose plastic shapes are as yet not _posited_ as symbols at all. The _termination_ of this process[27], on the other hand, is the disappearance and dissolution of the symbolic type altogether. The strife which has hitherto been merely implied in it is now brought home to the artistic consciousness. The act of symbolization in consequence becomes the _conscious severation_ of the transparent significance, which is now recognized for what it is from the sensuous image cognate with it. In this severation, however, there still remains an express relation of reciprocity, which, however, declares itself as such no longer in the mode of immediate identity, but rather as a mere _comparison_ between the two, in which that differentiation and separation which in the previous type was not brought clearly to consciousness still remains as conspicuous a factor. And this is the sphere of that symbolism where the symbol is recognized as such. Here we find the artistic import _recognized_ and presented in its independent universality, whose concrete embodiment is expressly placed in subordination as an image of that presentment, and no more, and as such a comparative medium is utilized for the purpose of artistic representation.