101. SAIVA BASIS OF ABHINAVA'S ÆSTHETICS 115

SAIVA BASIS OF ABHINAVA'S ÆSTHETICS 115

2. Nature, which is the expression or manifestation of the Mind into its opposite, the mindless, the irrational, the crude external world, is the subject matter of his Philosophy of Nature.

3. The Spirit, which has three stages, (a) Subjective (b) Objective and (c) Absolute, is dealt with in his Phenomenology of Mind.

In his Phenomenology of mind he takes up the problem of soul. According to Hegel, soul is the first manifestation of Spirit. It is the first stage of the subjective spirit, the human mind, viewed subjectively, as the mind of an indi- vidual Subject. It is a stage that precedes both "Conscious- ness", and "mind". It is the lowest conceivable phase of the Spirit. It is a stage that manifests itself into three stages. (1) Natural soul (ii) Feeling soul and (iii) Actual soul. It is so rudimentary a stage that it has not yet reached sense-perception. It is hardly recognisable as human. I is hardly above the level of mere animality.

Hegel seems to start the analysis of the human mind at the point where life for the first time becomes manifest in the human body in mother's womb. His soul represents a stage just above that of mere animality and just below that wherein the perception develops. The soul level in itself involves three levels, as has just been stated. Its position in the Phenomenology of mind is just like that of "Being"tin the Logic and of "Space" in the Philosophy of nature,

The first starting point of the spirit is the Natural soul. It is immediate and, therefore, can be characterised as mere "being", free from all determinations. Nothing can be said of it excepting that it "is". If we remember the instance that Hegel gives of the second stage of the soul, the feeling