every figure of consciousness is followedand replaced by a new figure of consciousness, until eventuallyabsolute knowledge is attained. Every figure of consciousness issooner or later confronted with its own incompleteness and in-ternal contradictions.

Thus the stoics, for example, believed in a purely internal free-dom that is in no respect related to external reality. The interior-ity of consciousness and the external determination of reality arehere thought, as it were, independently of each other. However,this is an untenable position,