In the first, as immediate revelation, spirit has as its principle the shape of substantial spirit as identity, in which individuality remains submerged in its essence and, for itself, without right.

The second principle is the knowledge of this substantial spirit, such that it is the positive content and fulfillment, and being-for-self is its living form — beautiful ethical individuality.

The third is the deepening of knowing being-for-self within itself into abstract universality, and thereby into infinite opposition to an objectivity thus equally forsaken by spirit.

The principle of the fourth shape is the reversal of this opposition of spirit, so that it receives its truth and concrete essence in its inwardness, and is at home and reconciled in objectivity; and, since this spirit, having returned to its first substantiality, is spirit returned from infinite opposition, it is to generate and know this its truth as thought and as a world of actuality governed by law.