1.  The spirit of self-alienation has its existence in the world of culture and education and because this whole has been alienated from itself, beyond this world stands the unreal world of pure consciousness, i.e. of thought.  ²Its content is what is purely thought and thinking is its absolute element.  ³Initially, then, with thinking as its element, consciousness in this world only has these thoughts, it does not think them yet, it does not know they are thoughts.  Instead for this consciousness they only exist in the form of mental imagery.  ⁴Thinking does shift from actual reality into pure consciousness, but it remains still very much in the sphere of that reality and its edge, its definition.  ⁵Fragmented consciousness is the self-identity of pure consciousness only in itself for us; it is not that for itself.  ⁶It is thus only the immediate, not yet internally complete, elevation and its opposing principle, which continues to determine it, still lies within it.  It has not mastered that principle with the required mediating motion.  ⁷This is why, for it, the essence of its thought does not take the form of the abstract in itself, but only that of a common reality, an actual reality that has only been elevated into a different element without having lost the character of a reality that is not thought.

– ⁸It must be essentially distinguished from the in itself that is the essence of stoic consciousness.  Only thought as form as such counted for stoicism and it was open to any content, however alien, from the real world [IV.B. Freedom of Self-Consciousness §4].  In this case what counts for consciousness here is not thought as the form.  It must also be essentially distinguished from the in itself of virtuous consciousness.  The essence of virtue has its relation to actual reality, indeed it is the essence of reality itself, but at first only an unreal essence [V.B.c. Virtue etc. §4 M].  It is vital to this consciousness that its essence be actual and real, even if it does lie beyond actual reality.  ⁹We recall that neither the implicitly right and good in law-making reason nor the universal of reason scrutinizing law have the character of actual reality [V.C.b. Law-making reason §§3,4; V.C.c. Reason scrutinizing law §1.6-9 M].

– ¹⁰If, for this reason, pure thinking itself falls within the world of education and culture as one side of alienation, namely as the standard of abstract good and bad in judging [VI.B.I.a. Education and culture etc. §8.6-10 M], this means that, after going through the motion of the whole, it has been enriched by the moment of actual reality and with that of content.  ¹¹This actual reality of essence is, however, only a reality of pure, not of actual consciousness.  While it is elevated into the element of thinking, this reality of essence still does not count for this consciousness as a thought, but lies beyond the reality of consciousness, for the reality of essence here is the flight from the reality of this consciousness.

2.  Religion – clearly, that's what we're talking about here – emerges then as the faith of the world of culture and education, but it is not yet religion in and for itself.

– ²We have come across religion in other forms, such as the unhappy consciousness, a pattern of consciousness' motion that is devoid of substance.

– ³Again, in customary ethical substance, religion appeared as the faith in the underworld, although memories of the departed spirit do not really constitute faith, for it is not essence established in the element of pure consciousness beyond actual reality.  That spirit is immediately present; its element is the family [VI.A.a. Customary ethical world §§6,7; VI.A.b. Customary ethical action §11.5 M].

– ⁴Here religion has emerged clearly out of substance and is pure consciousness of substance; but to some extent also this pure consciousness is alienated from its actual consciousness, just as the essence is alienated from its existence.  ⁵This means that while religion is no longer that motion devoid of substance of consciousness, it still has the character of opposition against actual reality as this reality as such and against the reality of self-consciousness in particular.  For these reasons, religion here is essentially only a faith.

3.  This pure consciousness of absolute essence is an alienated consciousness.  ²We must now look more closely at that whose other it is and pure consciousness here can only be considered in conjunction with this.  ³At first glance, this pure consciousness seems to have only the world of actual reality confronting it.  But it is a flight from this world, which gives it the character of antithesis, so it has this world within itself.  Pure consciousness is thus essentially, inherently, alienated from itself and faith constitutes only one side of that.  ⁴The other side emerges simultaneously for us.  ⁵Pure consciousness is thus the reflection from out of the world of education and culture, whose substance, i.e. each of the masses in which it is articulated, revealed itself to be what it is in itself, namely spiritual/mental essences, absolutely restless motions or terms that immediately overcome themselves in their opposites [VI.B.I.a. Education and culture etc. §34 M].  ⁶Their essence, simple consciousness, is thus the simplicity of the absolute difference that is immediately no difference at all.  ⁷This makes their essence pure being for itself, not as this single individual, but the implicitly universal self as a restless motion attacking the calm essence of the matter at hand, permeating it.  ⁸In this essence lies thus the certainty that knows itself to be immediately truth, pure thinking as the absolute concept present in the power of its negativity destroying everything objective, all essence supposedly confronting consciousness, making it into a being of consciousness.

– ⁹This pure consciousness is also simple, integral, because its difference is no difference at all.  ¹⁰As this form of simple reflection into itself, however, it is the element of faith, in which spirit has the definite character of positive universality, of being in itself against that being for itself of self-consciousness.

– ¹¹Pushed out of the world – a world empty of essence and in complete dissolution – back into itself, spirit is, in truth, in unbroken unity the absolute motion and negativity of its own process of emerging into appearance and the inwardly satisfied essence and positive calm of that world.  ¹²But subject to the definite character of alienation as such, both these moments diverge from each other as doubled consciousness.  ¹³The former is pure insight as the spiritual process bringing itself together in self-consciousness, which has the consciousness of the positive, the form of objectivity or of image thinking against it and orients itself to that.  Its own object, however, is just the pure ego, I.

– ¹⁴In contrast, the simple consciousness of the positive, calm self-identity, has the inner essence as essence for its object.  ¹⁵Pure insight thus initially has no content inherent to it, because it is negative being for itself.  But content without insight belongs to faith.  ¹⁶If the former does not step out of self-consciousness, this at least has its content also in the element of pure self-consciousness, but in thinking not in concepts, in pure consciousness not in pure self-consciousness.  ¹⁷This makes it pure consciousness of essence, i.e. of the simple inside, which means it is then thinking.  This is the principle moment in the nature of faith that is normally overlooked.  ¹⁸The immediacy characterizing the manner in which essence lies in it derives from the fact that its object is essence, i.e. a pure thought.  ¹⁹This immediacy, however, to the extent thinking enters into consciousness, or pure consciousness enters into self-consciousness, acquires the meaning of an objective being lying beyond the consciousness of the self.  ²⁰This meaning, which the immediacy and simplicity of pure thinking acquires in consciousness, is what ensures that the essence of faith falls out of thinking down into the imagination and turns into an extrasensory world, which is supposed to be essentially something other than self-consciousness.

– ²¹In pure insight, in contrast, the transition of pure thinking into consciousness has the opposite character.  Objectivity has the significance of a merely negative content, overcoming itself and returning back into the self, i.e. in fact only the self is the object for itself.  The object only has truth to the extent that it takes the form of the self.

4.  Faith and pure insight both belong together in the element of pure consciousness and they are similarly together the return out of the actual world of culture and education.  ²They thus present themselves from three angles.  ³At one time each is outside of all relations in and for itself; then again each relates to the actual world opposed to consciousness; and thirdly, each relates within pure consciousness to the other.

5.  The aspect of being in and for itself in believing consciousness is its absolute object, whose content and definition have emerged.  ²For, according to the concept of faith, that object is nothing other than the real world elevated into the universality of pure consciousness.  ³The articulation into members of that real world thus also constitutes the organization of the object, with the difference that here the parts do not alienate themselves in being infused with spirit , but are essences existing in and for themselves, mindful spirits returned into themselves and remaining by themselves.

– ⁴The motion of their transition is thus only for us an alienation of the definition that sets them in their difference; only for us is it a necessary series.  For faith, however, their difference is just a calm distinction and their motion just an occurrence

6.  To name them briefly according to the external definition of their form, absolute essence, mindful spirit existing in and for itself to the extent that it is simple, eternal substance, is here too the first, just as in the world of education and culture state power, the good, was the first [VI.B.I.a. Education and culture etc. §7.2].  ²Realization of its concept of being spirited mind, however, carries substance over into being for another ; its self-identity turns into the actual, self-sacrificing, absolute essence.  It turns into a self, but a transitory self.  ³This is why the third is the return of this alienated self and of debased substance into its own initial simplicity.  First in this way is substance imagined as spirit/mind.

7.  These distinct essences, taken back into themselves out of the flux of the actual world by thinking, are now changeless, eternal mindful spirits whose being is to think that unity which they constitute.  ²Even though they are far removed from self-consciousness, these essences do reach into it.  If essence were not removed and remained in the form of the first simple substance, then it would still be alien to self-consciousness.  ³But the renunciation, first of this substance and then of its spirit, has the moment of actual reality inherent to it, and with that it gives itself a place in believing self-consciousness.  Believing consciousness now belongs to the real world.

8.  In terms of this second scenario, believing consciousness has its actual reality in the real world of education and culture constituting its sprit and its existence, which is what we have been looking at.  To some extent, however, it also confronts this its actual reality as vanity and is the motion of overcoming it.  ²This motion consists not in the fact that it would have a great-souled consciousness on the inversion; for it is the simple consciousness that considers being of great soul vain because vanity is still targeting the real world.  ³In fact, the calm realm of its thinking confronts actual reality as a mindless existence, which for that reason must be externally overcome.  ⁴By overcoming sense knowledge and action, this obedience of service and of praise produces the consciousness of unity with essence existing in and for itself; but not as intuited actual unity, for this service is only the continuing production that never finally reaches its goal in the present.  ⁵The community certainly reaches that, for it is universal self-consciousness.  For single self-consciousness, on the other hand, the realm of pure thinking necessarily remains beyond its reality.  In that this enters into reality through the renunciation of eternal essence, it is an uncomprehended, sensuous, actual reality.  One sensuous reality, however, remains indifferent to the other and the beyond has only added to that the aspect of displacement in space and time.

– ⁶The concept, however, the actual reality of the spirit present to itself, remains in believing consciousness the inside that is everything and is effective, but does not itself emerge from out of that inside.

9.  Now, in pure insight, only the concept is actual; and this third side of faith, i.e. being the object for pure insight, is the genuine relation in which faith emerges here.

– ²Pure insight too must be considered in and for itself, but partly also in relation to the actual world, as far as that is still positive, namely as vain consciousness; and finally, it is also to be considered in that relation to faith, i.e. when it takes faith as its object.

10.  We have seen what pure insight is in and for itself.  Just as faith is the calm, pure consciousness of spirited mind as essence, so is insight the self-consciousness of spirited mind.  ²Pure insight thus sets about overcoming everything other to and independent of self-consciousness, whether of actual reality or of being in itself, and turning them into the concept.  ³It is not only the certainty of self-conscious reason of being all truth, now pure insight knows it is this.

11.  The way the concept of pure insight emerges leaves it not yet realized.  ²Its consciousness appears in this as something still contingent, single, its essence, the goal it has to realize.  ³Its consciousness starts out with the intention of making pure insight universal, i.e. to make everything real into the concept and to one and the same concept in every self-consciousness.  ⁴The intention is pure, for it has pure insight for its content.  This insight is also pure, for its content is only the absolute concept that has no antithesis in an object nor is it inherently limited in any way.  ⁵In the unrestricted concept lie immediately both sides: that everything objective only has the meaning of being for itself, of self-consciousness, which itself has the significance of a universal, so that the pure insight becomes the property of every self-consciousness.  ⁶This second side of the intention is a result of education in the sense that in it the different parts that appeared as originally determinate natures have been destroyed just like the differences of objective spirited mind, the parts and terms of judgement of its world.  ⁷Genius, talent, the special capabilities in general, they all belong to the world of actual reality so long as they retain their inherent attachment to the spirit/mind animal kingdom, fighting and mutually deceiving each other with violence and confusion over the essences of the real world.

– ⁸The differences do not have a place in it as genuine espèces [VI.B.I.a Culture and education etc. §37.1]; nor is individuality satisfied with the unreal matter itself, and neither does it have particular content and its own goals.  ⁹Rather, it has validity only as something universally valid, as educated, cultivated, and the difference boils down to a question of more or less energy, a difference of magnitude, i.e. the inessential difference [V.C.a. Spirit/mind animal kingdom §§5, 13, 14, 18, 19; VI.B.I.a. Education and culture etc. §2 M].  ¹⁰This distinction, however, was destroyed once difference in the complete fragmentation of consciousness turned into absolute qualitative difference.  ¹¹What is in that the other to the ego, I, is only this ego itself.  ¹²In this infinite proposition, all one-sidedness and idiosyncrasy of the original being for itself has been eliminated.  The self knows itself to be its own object as the pure self.  Now this absolute equality of the two sides is the element of pure insight [VI.B.I.a. Education and culture etc. §33.7-11; §3.4-13 above M].

– ¹³For this reason it is the simple essence differentiated within itself and similarly the universal work and universal possession.  ¹⁴In this simple spiritual/mental substance self-consciousness gives itself and sustains for itself in every object the consciousness of this its singularity or of its own action, just as conversely, the individuality of self-consciousness is therein self-identical and universal.

– ¹⁵This pure insight is thus spirit/mind crying out to all consciousness: Be for yourselves what you are all in yourselves – rational!