(_γ_) The process of death, however, in the Divine nature is only to be regarded as a point of transition, by means of which the self-reconcilement of Spirit is effected; and the aspects of the Divine and human, the out and out universal and the phenomenal individuality, to mediate the division of which is the main object in view, are positively suffered to coalesce. This positive affirmation, which is the underlying root and origination of the process, is consequently also forced to exhibit itself in a like positive way. As emphatic situations in the Christ-history the resurrection and ascension supply conspicuously the very means to put that affirmation in the clearest light. In more isolated fashion we have over and above this for the same purpose those occasions in which Christ appears to His own as teacher. Here, however, plastic art is confronted with an exceptional situation of difficulty. For in a measure it is Spirit in its purity, which is to be presented in this very impalpable ideality, and in a measure, too, it is nothing less than absolute Spirit, which in the full pregnancy of its infinitude and universality is affirmatively propounded in union with an individual consciousness and exalted above immediate existence; and yet notwithstanding such preconceptions it has undertaken the task to envisage for sense in the bodily configuration of this person the entire expression of the infinite and innermost spiritual profundity which it refers to him[228]. 2. RELIGIOUS LOVE Mind in its ultimate and most complete explication as reason is, as such, not the immediate object of art. Its highest and most essentially realized reconciliation can only find such satisfied consummation in the intellectual medium as such, that is to say, the ideal medium which is withdrawn from the reach of artistic expression; for absolute Truth stands on a higher level than the show of beauty, which is unable to break away from the sensuous and phenomenal. If, then, Spirit is to receive an existence as _Spirit_ in its positive reconciliation through the medium of art, an existence which is apprehended not merely as ideal, in other words, as pure thought, but can be _felt_ and _envisaged_, it follows that the only mode left to us, which supplies this two-fold condition of spirituality on the one hand and of its capability of being conceived and presented by art on the other, is that of the inner realm of Spirit itself, what we understand by the soul and its emotional experience. And the condition of that kingdom which alone fully answers to the notion of free Spirit brought into peace and joy with itself is _Love._