Dieter Henrich characterised Hegel's conception of the absolute as follows: “The absolute is the finite to the extent to which the finite is nothing at all but negative relation to itself” (Henrich 1982, p. 82). As Bowie describes it, Hegel's system depends upon showing how each view and positing of how the world really is has an internal contradiction: "This necessarily leads thought to more comprehensive ways of grasping the world, until the point where there can be no more comprehensive way because there is no longer any contradiction to give rise to it." For Hegel, the interaction of opposites generates, in a dialectical fashion, all concepts we use in order to understand the world. Moreover, this development occurs not only in the individual mind, but also throughout history. In "The Phenomenology of Spirit", for example, Hegel presents a history of human consciousness as a journey through stages of explanations of the world. Each successive explanation created problems and oppositions within itself, leading to tensions which could only be overcome by adopting a view that could accommodate these oppositions in a higher unity. At the base of spirit lies a rational development. This means that the Absolute itself is exactly that rational development. For example, the assertion that "All reality is spirit" means that all of reality rationally orders itself and while doing so creates the oppositions we find in it. Even nature is not different from spirit (German: Geist) since nature is ordered by the determinations given to us by spirit. Nature, as that which is not spirit is so determined by spirit, therefore it follows that nature is not absolutely other, but understood as other and therefore not essentially alien.