appiness. Periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for
they are periods of harmony--periods when the antithesis is in abeyance.
Reflection of self--the freedom above described--is abstractly defined
as the formal element of the activity of the absolute Idea. The
realizing activity of which we have spoken is the middle term of the
syllogism, one of whose extremes is the universal essence, the _Idea_,
which reposes in the penetralia of Spirit; and the other, the complex of
external things--objective matter. That activity is the medium by which
the universal latent principle is translated into the domain of
objectivity.

I will endeavor to make what has been said more vivid and clear by
examples. The building of a house is, in the first instance, a
subjective aim and design. On the other hand we have, as means, the
several substances required for the work--iron, wood, stones. The
elements are made use of in working up this material--fire to melt the
iron, wind to blow the fire, water to set the wheels in motion in order
to cut the wood, etc. The result is that the wind, which has helped to
build the house, is shut out by the house; so also are the violence of
rains and floods and the destructive powers of fire, so far as the house
is made fire-proof. The stones and beams obey the law of gravity--press
downward--and so high walls are carried up. Thus the elements are made
use of in accordance with their nature, and yet are made to cooeperate
for a product by which their operation is limited. It is thus that the
passions of men are gratified; they develop themselves and their aims in
accordance with their natural tendencies and build up the edifice of
human society, thus fortifying a position for Right and Order _against
themselves_.

The connection of events above indicated involves also the fact that, in
history, an additional result is commonly produced by human actions
beyond what they aim at and obtain what they immediately recognize and
desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is
thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not
present to their consciousness and not included in their design. An
analogous example is offered in the case of a man who, from a feeling of
revenge--perhaps not an unjust one, but produced by injury on the
other's part--burns that other man's house. A connection is immediately
established between the deed itself, taken abstractly, and a train of
cir