The only alternative we have left us is a process of _subsumation_, whereby the phenomenon, the actual and defined thing, here the concrete case or end, is not unravelled in immediate unity with the universal as such, and freely from its own substance, but only receives validity by virtue of its dependence upon general principles and in its relation to legislative acts, morality, customs, and the like, which on their own account possess independent stability. It is not the spontaneous life of the fact in its concrete manifestation, but the prosaic division between notion and reality, a mere relation of both to each other and a mere demand for their union, which constitutes the fundamental type under consideration. Such a process of thought is frequently adopted by the religious teacher. For him religious doctrines, in their widest connotation, and the principles of morality or of philosophy, political or otherwise, which follow in their train, are in fact precisely the object whereto he can refer cases of every conceivable variety; and they are this for the reason that these doctrines have to be accepted, believed and recognized by the religious consciousness as essentially and in their own worth the substance of all particular appearance. No doubt the preacher may at the same time appeal to our heart, may suffer the divine laws to unveil from the depth of soul-life as their source, and face to face with his audience may refer them to such a source. But it is not in their absolutely individual guise that he must necessarily present and assert them; on the contrary, he must bring effective universality to consciousness under precisely this form of commands, promises and maxims of faith. The oratory of courts of law is even a better illustration. Here we find in addition the twofold point of view, that while on the one hand all turns most obviously on the particular case, yet conversely the subsumation of this case to general considerations and laws is equally a necessity. As regards the _first_ aspect, we may remark that the element of prose is already implied in the enforced investigation of the actual facts and the collocation and able reconstruction of all singular circumstances and accidents; a process such as this at once opens our eyes to the poverty involved in this investigation of the truth of such a legal case, no less than the tedious ingenuity engaged in its display, if we contrast it at least with the free creations of poetry. We have in fact to carry our analysis of the concrete facts to a yet further point. Such must not merely be traced in a series that does justice to all features, but every one of such features, no less than the whole case, have to be referred back to the statute accepted from the first as of independent validity. At the same time, even in this prosaic affair, we still have considerable scope for an impression on the heart and emotions. For it