OFF THE BEATEN TRACK
merely the character of object, while, for us, it appears at the same time as movement and becoming.
In virtue of that necessity this pathway to science is itself already science, and is, moreover, as regards its content, science of the experience of consciousness.
[16] The experience which consciousness has concerning itself can, by its own concept, conceive within itself nothing less than the entire system of consciousness, the whole realm of the truth of spirit, and in such wise that the moments of truth present themselves in the specific and peculiar character they here possess - i.e., not as abstract pure moments, but as they are for consciousness, or as consciousness itself appears in its relation to them, and in virtue of which the moments of the whole are shapes or configurations of consciousness. In pressing forward to its true existence, consciousness will come to a point at which it lays aside its semblance of being hampered with what is foreign to it, with what is only for it and exists as an other; it will reach a position where appearance becomes identified with essence, where, in consequence, its presentation coincides with just this very point, this very stage of the genuine science of spirit. And, finally, when it grasps this its own essence, it will indicate the nature of absolute knowledge itself.
The first paragraph gives the subject matter of philosophy. "It contemplates what is present as that which is present and (contemplates) therefore what is already predominant in it (in what is present) on its own," θεωρεῖ τὸ ὂν ᾗ ὂν καὶ τὰ τούτῳ ὑπάρχοντα καθ᾽ αὑτό (Aristotle, Metaphysics Γ 1, 1003a21). Predominance concerns coming-to-light in unconcealedness. Philosophy contemplates what is present in its presencing. Contemplation observes [betrachtet] what is present. It strives [trachtet] toward it so that it looks at what is present only as such. Philosophy looks at [sieht an] what is present in regard to its looks [Ansehen]. No hidden depth is simmering in the vision [Schau] of this contemplation [Beschauens]. θεωρία makes all knowledge sober. Philosophy, Hegel says in the language of his thought, is "the real knowledge of what truly is." In the meantime, the beings that truly are have proved to be beings that are real, beings whose reality is spirit. The essence of spirit, however, is based in self-consciousness.
In his lectures on the history of modem philosophy (Werke, vol. XV, p. 3282), after discussing Bacon and Jakob Böhme, Hegel says:
It is only now that we do in fact arrive at the philosophy of the modern world, and we begin it with Descartes. With him we actually enter upon an autonomous philosophy, one that knows that its autonomy comes from reason and that self-consciousness is
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