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 circumstances not directly included in it.  In itself it consisted in merely bringing a small flame into contact with a small portion of a beam.  Events not involved in that simple act follow of themselves.  The part of the beam which was set afire is connected with its remote portions, the beam itself is united with the woodwork of the house generally, and this with other houses, so that a wide conflagration ensues which destroys the goods and chattels of many other persons besides those belonging to the person against whom the act of revenge was first directed, perhaps even costs not a few men their lives.  This lay