as thinking being, we have the identity of the
real and the ideal, of being and thought immediately given. As the ego,
in which the subject of thought and the object of thought are one, is the
undivided ground of its several activities, so God is the primal unity,
which lies at the basis of the totality of the world. As in Schelling, the
absolute is described as self-identical, absolute unity, exalted above
the antithesis of real and ideal, nay, above all antitheses. God is the
negation of opposites, the world the totality of them. If there were
an adequate knowledge of the absolute identity it would be an absolute
knowledge. This is denied, however, to us men, who are never able to rise
above the opposition of sensuous and intellectual cognition. The unity of
thought and being is presupposed in all thinking, but can never actually
be thought. As an Idea this identity is indispensable, but to think it
definitely, either by conception or judgment, is impossible. The concepts
supreme power (God or creative nature) and supreme cause (fate or
providence) do not attain to that which we seek to think in them: that
which has in it no opposition is an idea incapable of realization by man,
but, nevertheless, a necessary ideal, the presupposition of all cognition
(and volition), and the ground of all certitude. All knowledge must be
related to the absolute unity and be accompanied by it. Since, then, the
absolute identity cannot be presented, but ever sought for only, and
absolute knowledge exists only as an ideal, dialectic is not so much a
science as a technique of thought and proof, an introduction to philosophic
thinking or (since knowledge is thought in common) to discussion in
conformity with the rules of the art. With this the name dialectic returns
to its original Platonic meaning.

[Footnote 1: Cf. Quaebicker, _Ueber Schleiermachers erkeuntnisstheoretische
Grundansicht_, 1871, and the _Inquiries_ by Bruno Weiss in the _Zeitschrift
fuer Philosophie_, vols. lxxiii.-lxxv., 1878-79.]

The popular ideas of God ill stand examination by the standard furnished
by the principle of identity. The plurality of attributes which we are
accustomed to ascribe to God agree but poorly with his unity free from all
contrariety. In reality God does not possess these manifold attributes;
they first arise in the religious consciousness, in which his unconditioned
and undivided working is variously reflected and, as it were, divided. They
are o