[14th Paragraph]
What is rational is actual;
and what is actual is rational.
Every naive consciousness stands in this conviction, as does philosophy, and from this philosophy proceeds in its consideration of the spiritual universe just as much as of the natural. If reflection, feeling, or whatever form subjective consciousness takes, regards the present as something vain, is beyond it and knows better, it finds itself in the vain. If, conversely, the idea counts as what is merely such an idea, a representation in an opining, philosophy by contrast grants the insight that nothing is actual but the idea. What matters then is to recognize in the appearance of the temporal and transient the substance which is immanent, and the eternal which is present. For the rational, which is synonymous with the idea, as it simultaneously enters into external existence in its actuality, emerges in an infinite richness of forms, appearances, and configurations and surrounds its kernel with the variegated rind which the concept first penetrates in order to find the inner pulse. The infinitely manifold relations, however, that form in this externality through the shining of the essence into it, this infinite material and its regulation is not the object of philosophy. It would thereby meddle in matters that do not concern it; it can spare itself giving good advice on such things. In such elaborations, no trace of philosophy is to be seen any longer, and it can leave such ultra-wisdom all the more, as it should show itself most liberal precisely regarding this infinite multitude of objects.
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