Note (return) — Chapter II
Reading edition
The Absolute(die Idée) thus forms the beginning, middle, and end of the system of Hegel. It is the one infinite existence or thought, of which nature, mind, history, religion, and philosophy, are the manifestation. "The absolute is, with him, not the infinite substance, as with Spinoza; nor the infinite subject, as with Fichte; nor the infinite mind, as with Schelling; it is a perpetual process, an eternal thinking, without beginning and without end." 44 This living, eternal process of absolute existence is the God of Hegel.