tried to exhibit their (this series of spiritual configurations) necessary procession out of one another, so that each philosophy necessarily presupposes the one preceding it. Our standpoint is the cognition of spirit, the knowledge of the idea as spirit, as absolute spirit, which as absolute opposes itself to another spirit, to the finite spirit. To recognize that absolute spirit can be for it is this finite spirit’s principle and vocation. (LHP 1825–6, III: 212)