The Absolute Idea: Abstract vs. Actual in Hegel’s philosophy

Note 6. To the Subsection “Logic, Nature, and Spirit

The Absolute Idea at the end of the philosophy of Spirit is actual while the Absolute Idea at the end of the Logic is abstract. W. T. Stace writes as follows: “The Idea is thus both subject and object here. The whole development of spirit from its earliest stages has been motivated by this one impulse,―to bridge the gulf between subject and object, and this is now complete, and with this the development of spirit is complete. Subject and object are now identical. Absolute reconciliation is reached. And since the Idea now has itself for object, it is seen as what it is, self-consciousness, the Absolute Idea. This is the same result as we reached at the end of the Logic.
But the Absolute Idea as found at the end of the Logic was still abstract to this extent that it was merely a category. Absolute spirit is the same thing which has now given itself actuality, has passed from the sphere of pure thought, of categories, into actual existence.”
The Philosophy of Hegel: A Systematic Exposition (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1955), 516.