(_a_) In other words, if we look at the content, we shall see that its articulation is in its important features similar to the fundamental notion of absolute Spirit, the return of a reconciled presence from its Other to itself. This Other in the sense of the Other, in which Spirit continues by itself, can only be itself something spiritual, or rather a spiritual personality. The true essence of love consists in the surrender of the self-consciousness, in the forgetting oneself in another self, yet for all that to have and possess oneself for the first time in this very act of surrender and oblivion. This mediation of Spirit with itself and surcharge of its own to the unit of totality is the Absolute, not, however, of course, under the mode in which the Absolute coalesces with itself as merely singular and thereby finite individuality in another finite subject; rather the content of the spiritual individuality which is here self-mediated in another is the Absolute itself. It is, in short, Spirit which is only the knowledge and volition of its own substance as the Absolute by being in another, and which receives therewith the fruition of such knowledge. (_b_) More closely regarded this content as love has the form of self-concentrated emotion, which, instead of making its content more explicit, that is to say, presenting it to consciousness in its definite terms and universality, rather converges the infinite breadth of the same directly to one focus in the clear profundity of the soul, without further unfolding in other directions for the imagination the wealth which it essentially includes. By this means a content of equal significance, which would be inconformable to artistic presentation, is fresh from the mint of its pure and ideal universality, is none the less capable of being the subject-matter of art in this individual existence of subjective emotion; for while under a mode such as this it is not on the one hand compelled to accept an articulation of perfect clarity by reason of its still undisclosed depth, which is the obvious characteristic of soul-life, yet on the other hand it receives under this mode a medium that it is possible for art to make use of. For soul-life, heart, feeling, however self-contained and spiritual they may remain, have none the less a bond of affiliation with the sensuous and material, so that they are able also on the outside show of things through the bodily members themselves, through a look, the facial expression, or in a still more spiritual way through the voice tones or a word to disclose the inmost life and existence of Spirit. But this exterior medium is in such a case only acceptable in so far as it strictly expresses this most intimate life of soul in ways that reflect the inward nature of the soul itself.