only in a means it is still connected with the object immediately, immersed in it; it is itself an object, and the end, one may say, does not attain to a means, because the realisation of the end is a prior requirement before that realisation could be brought about through a means. § 1625 In fact, however, the result is not only an external end relation, but the truth of it, an internal end relation and an objective end. The externality of the object, self−subsistent as against the Notion, which the end presupposes for itself is posited in this presupposition as an unessential illusory show and is also already sublated in and for itself; the activity of the end is therefore, strictly speaking, only the representation of this illusory show and the sublating of it. As the Notion has shown us, the first object becomes by communication a means, because it is in itself totality of the Notion, and its determinateness which is none other than externality itself is posited merely as something external and unessential and therefore appears within the end itself as the end's own moment not as a self−subsistent moment relatively to the end. Thus the determination of the object as a means is purely an immediate one. Accordingly, in order to make that object a means, the subjective end requires to use no violence against the object, no reinforcement against it other than the reinforcing of itself; the resolve [Entschluss], the explication [Aufschluss], this determination of itself, is the merely posited externality of the object, which appears therein as immediately subjected to the end and possesses no other determination counter to it than that of the nullity of the being−in−and−for−self. § 1626 The second sublating of objectivity by objectivity differs from the above as follows: the former sublation, as the first, is the end in objective immediacy, and therefore the second is not merely the sublating of a first immediacy but of both, of the objective as something merely posited, and of the immediate. In this way, the negativity returns into it self in such a manner that it is equally a restoration of the objectivity but of an objectivity identical with it, and in this it is as at the same time also a positing of the objectivity as an external objectivity determined only by the end. Through the latter circumstance this product remains as before also a Science of Logic Chapter 3 Teleology − next section 134 means; through the former it is objectivity that is identical with the Notion, the realised end, in which the side of being a means is the reality of the end itself. In the realised end the means vanishes, for it would be the objectivity that is as yet only immediately subsumed under the end, and in the realised end objectivity is present as the return of the end into itself; further, with it there also vanishes the mediation itself as a relation of something external, on the one side, into the concrete identity of the objective end, and on the other, into the same identity as abstract identity and immediacy of existence. § 1627 Herein is also contained the mediation that was demanded for the first premise, the immediate relation of the end to the object. The realised end is also means, and conversely the truth of the means is just this, to be itself a real end, and the first sublating of objectivity is already also the second, just as the second proved to contain the first, as well. That is to say, the Notion determines itself; its determinateness is external indifference, which is immediately determined in the resolution [Entschluss] as sublated, namely as internal, subjective indifference, and at the same time as a presupposed object. Its further passage out from itself which appeared, namely, as an immediate communication and subsumption of the presupposed object under it, is at the same time a sublating of the former determinateness of externality that was internal and enclosed within the Notion, that is, posited as sublated, and at the same time a sublating of the presupposition of an object; consequently, this apparently first sublating of the indifferent objectivity is already the second as well, a reflection−into−self that has passed through mediation, and the realised end. § 1628 Since the Notion here in the sphere of objectivity, where its determinateness has the form of indifferent externality, is in reciprocal action with itself, the exposition of its movement here becomes doubly difficult and involved, because this movement is itself double and a first is always a second also. In the Notion taken by itself, that is in its subjectivity, its difference from itself appears as an immediate identical totality on its own account; but since its determinateness here is indifferent externality, its identity with itself in this externality is also immediately again self−repulsion, so that what is determined as external and indifferent to the identity is the identity itself; and the identity as identity, as reflected into itself, is rather its other. Only by keeping this firmly in mind can we grasp the objective return of the Notion into itself, that is, the true objectification of the Notion −− grasp that each of the single moments through which this mediation runs its course is itself the entire syllogism of those moments. § 1629 Thus the original inner externality of the Notion through which it is self−repellent unity, the end and the striving of the end towards objectification, is the immediate positing or presupposition of an external object; the self−determination is also the determination of an external object not determined by the Notion; and conversely, the latter determination is self−determination, that is, externality sublated and posited as internal −− or the certainty of the unessentiality of the external object. Of the second relation, the determination of the object as means, it has just been shown how it is within itself the mediation of the end in the object with itself. Similarly, the third relation, mechanism, which proceeds under the dominance of the end and sublates the object by the object, is on the one hand a sublating of the means, of the object already posited as sublated and is therefore a second sublating and a reflection−into−self; while on the other hand it is a first determining of the external object. The latter, as has been remarked, is the production again in the realised end only of a means; the subjectivity of the finite Notion, contemptuously rejecting the means, has attained to nothing better in its goal. But this reflection that the end is reached in the means, and that in the fulfilled end, means and mediation are preserved, is the last result of the external end−relation, a result in which that relation has sublated itself, and which it has exhibited as its truth. The third syllogism that was considered last is distinguished by the fact that it is, in the first place, the subjective purposive activity of the preceding Science of Logic Chapter 3 Teleology − next section 135 syllogisms, but is also the spontaneous sublation of external objectivity, and therewith of externality in general, and hence is the totality in its positedness. § 1630 First we saw subjectivity, the Notion's being−for−self, pass over; into its in−itself, objectivity, to be followed by the reappearance in the latter of the negativity of the Notion's being−for−self; in that negativity the Notion has determined itself in such a manner that its particularity is an external objectivity, or it has determined itself as a simple concrete unity whose externality is its self−determination. The movement of the end has now reached the stage where the moment of externality is not merely posited in the Notion, where the end is not merely an ought−to−be and a striving to realise itself, but as a concrete totality is identical with the immediate objectivity. This identity is on the one hand the simple Notion and the equally immediate objectivity, but on the other hand, it is just as essentially a mediation, and only through the latter as a self−sublating mediation is it that simple immediacy; the Notion is therefore essentially this: to be distinct as an explicit identity from its implicit objectivity, and thereby to possess externality, yet in this external totality to be the totality's self−determining identity. As such, the Notion is now the Idea. The Doctrine of the Notion Section Three: The Idea Life − Cognition − The Absolute Idea § 1631 The Idea is the adequate Notion, that which is objectively true, or the true as such. When anything whatever possesses truth, it possesses it through its Idea, or, something possesses truth only in so far as it is Idea. The expression 'idea' has often been employed in philosophy as in ordinary life for 'notion', indeed, even for a mere ordinary conception: 'I have no idea yet of this lawsuit, building, neighbourhood', means nothing more than the ordinary conception. Kant has reclaimed the expression Idea for the notion of reason. Now according to Kant, the notion of reason is supposed to be the notion of the unconditioned, but a notion transcendent in regard to phenomena, that is, no empirical use can be made of such notion that is adequate to it. The notions of reason are to serve for the comprehension of perceptions, the notions of the understanding for understanding them. But in fact, if the latter really are Notions, then they are Notions −− they enable one to comprehend , and an understanding of perceptions by means of notions of the understanding will be a comprehension of them. § 1632 But if understanding is only a determining of perceptions by such categories as for example whole and parts, force, cause, and the like, it signifies only a determining by reflection; and similarly, by understanding can be meant only the specific representation of a completely determined sensuous content; thus when someone, having been directed that at the end of the wood he must turn left, replies 'I understand', understanding means nothing more than the grasping of something in pictorial thought and in memory. 'Notion of reason', too, is a somewhat clumsy expression; for the Notion is something altogether rational; and in so far as reason is distinguished from understanding and the Notion as such, it is the totality of the Notion and of objectivity. In this sense the Idea is the rational; it is the unconditioned, because only that has conditions which essentially relates itself to an objectivity, but an objectivity that it has not itself determined but which still confronts it in the form of indifference and externality, just as the external end still had conditions. § 1633 Science of Logic The Doctrine of the Notion Section Three: The Idea 136 Reserving then the expression 'Idea' for the objective or real Notion and distinguishing it from the Notion itself and still more from mere pictorial thought, we must also reject even more vigorously that estimate of the Idea according to which it is not anything actual, and true thoughts are said to be only ideas. If thoughts are merely subjective and contingent, they certainly have no further value; but in this respect they are not inferior to temporal and contingent actualities which likewise have no further value than that of contingencies and phenomena. On the other hand if, conversely, the Idea is not to have the value of truth, because in regard to phenomena it is transcendent, and no congruent object can be assigned to it in the world of sense, this is an odd misunderstanding that would deny objective validity to the Idea because it lacks that which constitutes Appearance, namely, the untrue being of the objective world. In regard to practical Ideas, Kant recognises that 'nothing can be more harmful and unworthy of a philosopher than the vulgar appeal to an experience that allegedly conflicts with the Idea. This very experience would not even exist if, for example, political institutions had been established at the proper time in conformity with Ideas, and if crude conceptions, crude just because they had been drawn from experience, had not taken the place of Ideas and so nullified every good intention.' Kant regards the Idea as a necessity and as the goal which, as the archetype, it must be our endeavour to set up for a maximum and to which we must strive to bring the condition of the actual world ever nearer. § 1634 But having reached the result that the Idea is the unity of the Notion and objectivity, is the true, it must not be regarded merely as a goal to which we have to approximate but which itself always remains a kind of beyond; on the contrary, we must recognise that everything actual is only in so far as it possesses the Idea and expresses it. It is not merely that the object, the objective and subjective world in general, ought to be congruous with the Idea, but they are themselves the congruence of Notion and reality; the reality that does not correspond to the Notion is mere Appearance, the subjective, contingent, capricious element that is not the truth. § 1635 When it is said that no object is to be found in experience that is perfectly congruous with the Idea, one is opposing the Idea as a subjective standard to the actual; but what anything actual is supposed in truth to be, if its Notion is not in it and if its objectivity docs not correspond to its Notion at all, it is impossible to say; for it would be nothing. It is true that the mechanical and chemical object, like the nonspiritual subject and the spirit that is conscious only of the finite, not of its essence, do not, according to their various natures, have their Notion existent in them in its own free form. But they can only be true at all in so far as they are the union of their Notion and reality, of their soul and their body. Wholes like the state and the church cease to exist when the unity of their Notion and their reality is dissolved; man, the living being, is dead when soul and body are parted in him; dead nature, the mechanical and chemical world −− taking, that is, the dead world to mean the inorganic world, otherwise it would have no positive meaning at all −− dead nature, then, if it is separated into its Notion and its reality, is nothing but the subjective abstraction of a thought form and a formless matter. Spirit that was not Idea, was not the unity of the Notion with its own self, or the Notion that did not have the Notion itself for its reality would be dead, spiritless spirit, a material object. § 1636 The Idea being the unity of Notion and reality, being has attained the significance of truth; therefore what now is is only what is Idea. Finite things are finite because they do not possess the complete reality of their Notion within themselves, but require other things to complete it −− or, conversely, because they are presupposed as objects, hence possess the Notion as an external determination. The highest to which they Science of Logic The Doctrine of the Notion Section Three: The Idea 137 attain on the side of this finitude is external purposiveness. That actual things are not congruous with the Idea is the side of their finitude and untruth, and in accordance with this side they are objects, determined in accordance with their various spheres and in the relationships of objectivity, either mechanically, chemically or by an external end. That the Idea has not completely leavened its reality, has imperfectly subdued it to the Notion, this is a possibility arising from the fact that the Idea itself has a restricted content, that though it is essentially the unity of Notion and reality, it is no less essentially their difference; for only the object is their immediate, that is, merely implicit unity. But if an object, for example the state, did not correspond at all to its Idea, that is, if in fact it was not the Idea of the state at all, if its reality, which is the self−conscious individuals, did not correspond at all to the Notion, its soul and its body would have parted; the former would escape into the solitary regions of thought, the latter would have broken up into the single individualities. § 1637 But because the Notion of the state so essentially constitutes the nature of these individualities, it is present in them as an urge so powerful that they are impelled to translate it into reality, be it only in the form of external purposiveness, or to put up with it as it is, or else they must needs perish. The worst state, one whose reality least corresponds to the Notion, in so far as it still exists, is still Idea; the individuals still obey a dominant Notion. § 1638 However, the Idea has not merely the more general meaning of the true being, of the unity of Notion and reality, but the more specific one of the unity of subjective Notion and objectivity. That is to say, the Notion as such is itself already the identity of itself and reality; for the indefinite expression 'reality' means in general nothing else but determinate being, and this the Notion possesses in its particularity and individuality. Similarly too, objectivity is the total Notion that out of its determinateness has withdrawn into identity with itself. In the former subjectivity the determinateness or difference of the Notion is an illusory being [semblance] that is immediately sublated and has withdrawn into being−for−self or negative unity; it is an inhering predicate. But in this objectivity the determinateness is posited as an immediate totality, as an external whole. Now the Idea has shown itself to be the Notion liberated again into its subjectivity from the immediacy in which it is submerged in the object; to he the Notion that distinguishes itself from its objectivity, which however is no less determined by it and possesses its substantiality only in that Notion. 'This identity has therefore rightly been defined as the subject−object, for it is as well the formal or subjective Notion as it is the object as such. But this must be understood more precisely. The Notion, having truly attained its reality, is this absolute judgement whose subject, as self−related negative unity, distinguishes itself from its objectivity and is the latter's being−in−and−for−self, but essentially relates itself to it through itself; it is therefore its own end and the urge to realise it; but for this very reason the subject does not possess objectivity in an immediate manner, for if it did it would be merely the totality of the object as such lost in objectivity; on the contrary, objectivity is the realisation of the end, an objectivity posited by the activity of the end, an objectivity which, as positedness, possesses its subsistence and its form only as permeated by its subject. As objectivity, it has in it the moment of the externality of the Notion and is therefore in general the side of finitude, change and Appearance, a side, however, which meets with extinction in its retraction into the negative unity of the Notion; the negativity whereby its indifferent mutual externality exhibits itself as unessential and a positivity, is the Notion itself. § 1639 The Idea is, therefore, in spite of this objectivity utterly simple and immaterial, for the externality exists only as determined by the Notion and as taken up into its negative unity; in so far as it exists as indifferent externality it is not merely at the mercy of mechanism in general but exists only as the transitory and untrue. Although therefore the Idea has its reality in a material externality, this is not an abstract being subsisting on Science of Logic The Doctrine of the Notion Section Three: The Idea 138 its own account over against the Notion; on the contrary, it exists only as a becoming through the negativity of indifferent being, as a simple determinateness of the Notion. § 1640 This yields the following more precise definitions of the Idea. First, it is the simple truth, the identity of the Notion and objectivity as a universal in which the opposition and subsistence of the particular is dissolved into its self−identical negativity and is equality with itself. Secondly, it is the relation of the explicit subjectivity of the simple Notion and its objectivity which is distinguished therefrom; the former is essentially the urge to sublate this separation, and the latter is the indifferent positedness, the subsistence that is in and for itself null. As this relation, the Idea is the process of sundering itself into individuality and its inorganic nature, and again of bringing this inorganic nature under the power of the subject and returning to the first simple universality. The identity of the Idea with itself is one with the process; the thought which liberates actuality from the illusory show of purposeless mutability and transfigures it into the Idea must not represent this truth of actuality as a dead repose, as a mere picture, lifeless, without impulse or movement, as a genius or number, or an abstract thought; by virtue of the freedom which the Notion attains in the Idea, the Idea possesses within itself also the most stubborn opposition; its repose consists in the security and certainty with which it eternally creates and eternally overcomes that opposition, in it meeting with itself. > § 1641 In the first instance, however, the Idea is once again only immediate or only in its Notion; objective reality is, it is true, conformable to the Notion, but it is not yet liberated into the Notion, and the latter does not exist explicitly for itself as Notion. immediate, that is, its determinateness does not appear as soul itself, it has not grasped itself as soul, it does not possess its objective reality within itself; the Notion is as a soul that is not yet fully a soul. § 1642 At this first stage the Idea is Life: the Notion that, distinguished from its objectivity, simple within itself, pervades its objectivity and, as its own end, possesses its means in the objectivity and posits the latter as its means, yet is immanent in this means and is therein the realised end that is identical with itself. This Idea, on account of its immediacy, has individuality for the form of its existence. But the reflection−into−self of its absolute process is the sublating of this immediate individuality; thereby the Notion which, as universality in this individuality, is the inwardness of the latter, converts the externality into universality, or posits its objectivity as being the same as itself. § 1643 In this second stage, the Idea is the Idea of the true and the good as cognition and volition . In the first instance, it is finite cognition and finite volition, in which the true and the good are still distinguished and each appears as yet only as a goal. The Notion has, in the first instance, liberated itself into itself and as yet given itself only an abstract objectivity for its reality. But the process of this finite cognition and action converts the initially abstract universality into a totality, whereby it becomes a complete objectivity. Or, to consider it from the other side, finite, that is, subjective spirit, makes for itself the presupposition of an objective world, just as life has such a presupposition; but its activity consists in sublating this presupposition Science of Logic The Doctrine of the Notion Section Three: The Idea 139 and converting it into a positedness. In this way its reality is for it the objective world, or conversely, the objective world is the ideality in which it cognises itself. § 1644 Thirdly, spirit cognises the Idea as its absolute truth, as the truth that is in and for itself; the infinite Idea in which cognition and action are equalised, and which is the absolute knowledge of itself. Chapter 1 Life § 1645 The Idea of Life is concerned with a subject matter so concrete, and if you will, so real, that with it we may seem to have overstepped the domain of logic as it is commonly conceived. Certainly, if logic were to contain nothing but empty, dead forms of thought, there could be no mention init at all of such a content as the Idea of Life. But if absolute truth is the subject matter of logic, and truth as such is essentially in cognition, then cognition at least would have to be discussed. So called pure logic is usually followed up with an applied logic −− a logic dealing with concrete cognition, not to mention the mass of psychology and anthropology that it is often deemed necessary to interpolate into logic. But the anthropological and psychological side of cognition is concerned with its manifested aspect, in which the Notion on its own account has not yet come to have an objectivity the same as itself, that is, to have itself for object. The part of logic that treats of this concrete side does not belong to applied logic as such; if it did, then every science would have to be dragged into logic, for each is an applied logic in so far as it consists in apprehending its subject matter in forms of thought and the Notion. The subjective Notion has presuppositions which present themselves in psychological, anthropological and other forms. But to logic belong only the presuppositions of the pure Notion in so far as they have the form of pure thoughts, of abstract essentialities, that is, the determinations of being and essence. Similarly, in respect of cognition, the Notion's apprehension of itself, logic will not deal with other shapes of its presupposition but only with that which is itself Idea; this latter, however, necessarily falls to be dealt with in logic. Now this presupposition is the immediate Idea; for since cognition is the Notion in so far as this is for itself but as a subjectivity is in relation to an objectivity, the Notion is related to the Idea as presupposed or immediate Idea. But the immediate Idea is life. § 1646 To this extent the necessity of treating of the Idea of life in logic would be based on the necessity, otherwise recognised, too, of treating here of the concrete Notion of cognition. But this Idea has come upon the scene through the Notion's own necessity; the Idea, that which is true in and for itself, is essentially the subject matter of logic; since it is at first to be considered in its immediacy, it must be apprehended and cognised in this determinateness in which it is life, in order that its treatment shall not be an empty affair devoid of determinate content. All that we need perhaps to remark is how far the logical view of life differs from any other scientific view of it; this is not the place, however, to concern ourselves with how life is treated in the unphilosophical sciences, but only with differentiating logical life as pure Idea from natural life which is dealt with in the philosophy of nature, and from life in so far as it stands in connection with spirit. The former of these, as the life of nature, is life as projected into the externality of existence and having its condition in inorganic nature, and where the moments of the Idea are a multiplicity of actual formations. Life in the Idea is without such presuppositions which are in the form of shapes of actuality; its presupposition is the Notion as we have considered it, on the one hand as subjective, on the other hand as objective. In nature life appears as the highest stage, a stage that nature's externality attains by withdrawing into itself and sublating itself in subjectivity. In Logic it is simple inwardness [Insichsein], which in the Idea of life has attained an externality that genuinely corresponds to it; the Notion that earlier appeared on the scene as subjective Notion is the soul Science of Logic Chapter 1 Life 140 of life itself; it is the urge that mediates for itself its reality throughout objectivity. Nature, having reached this Idea from the starting point of its externality, transcends itself; its end does not appear as its beginning, but as its limit, in which it sublates itself. Similarly, in the Idea of life the moments of its reality do not receive the shape of external actuality but remain enclosed within the form of the Notion. § 1647 In spirit, however, life appears partly as opposed to it, partly as posited as at one with it, this unity being reborn as the pure offspring of spirit. For here life is to be taken generally in its proper sense as natural life, for what is called the life of spirit as spirit, is its peculiar nature that stands opposed to mere life; just as we speak, too, of the nature of spirit, although spirit is not a natural being and is rather the opposite of nature. Life as such, then, is for spirit partly a means, and as such spirit opposes it to itself; partly spirit is a living individual and life is its body; and again, this unity of spirit with its living corporeality is born from spirit itself as an ideal. None of these relations to spirit concerns logical life and life is to be considered here neither as instrument [Mittel] of a spirit, nor as a moment of the ideal and of beauty. In both cases, as natural life and as life standing in relation with spirit, life possesses a determinateness of its externality, in the first case through its presuppositions which are other formations of nature, in the second case through the ends and the activity of spirit. The Idea of life by itself is free from the former presupposed and conditioning objectivity as well as from relation to the latter subjectivity. § 1648 Life, considered now more closely in its Idea, is in and for itself absolute universality; the objectivity that it possesses is permeated throughout by the Notion and has the Notion alone for substance. What is distinguished as part, or in accordance with some other external reflection, has within itself the whole Notion; the Notion is the omnipresent soul in it, which remains simple self−relation and remains a one in the multiplicity belonging to objective being. This multiplicity, as self−external objectivity, has an indifferent subsistence, which in space and time, if these could already be mentioned here, is a mutual externality of wholly diverse and self−subsistent elements. But in life externality is at the same time present as the simple determinateness of its Notion; thus the soul is an omnipresent outpouring of itself into this multiplicity and at the same remains absolutely the simple oneness of the concrete Notion with itself. The thinking that clings to the determinations of the relationships of reflection and of the formal Notion, when it comes to consider life, this unity of its Notion in the externality of objectivity, in the absolute multiplicity of atomistic matter, finds all its thoughts without exception are of no avail; the omnipresence of the simple in manifold externality is for reflection an absolute contradiction, and as reflection must at the same time apprehend this omnipresence from its perception of life and therefore admit the actuality of this Idea, it is an incomprehensible mystery for it, because it does not grasp the Notion, and the Notion as the substance of life. This simple life, however, is not only omnipresent; it is absolutely the subsistence and immanent substance of its objectivity; but as subjective substance it is the urge, and moreover the specific urge, of the particular difference, and no less essentially the one and universal urge of the specialised difference that reduces this its particularisation into unity and maintains it therein. It is only as this negative unity of its objectivity and particularisation that life is a self−related life that is for itself, a soul. As such it is essentially an individual, which relates itself to objectivity as to an other, to a non−living nature. Consequently the original judgment of life consists in this, that it detaches itself as an individual subject from objectivity, and in constituting itself the negative unity of the Notion, makes the presupposition of an immediate objectivity. § 1649 Science of Logic Chapter 1 Life 141 Life is therefore first to be considered as a living individual that is for itself the subjective totality and is presupposed as indifferent to an objectivity that confronts it as indifferent. § 1650 Secondly, it is the life process, the process of sublating its presupposition, positing as negative the objectivity that is indifferent to it and actualising itself as that objectivity's power and negative unity. By so doing it makes itself into the universal that is the unity of itself and its other. § 1651 Hence life is thirdly the genus process, the process of sublating its individualisation and relating itself to its objective existence as to itself. Accordingly, this process is on the one hand the return to its Notion and the repetition of the first diremption, the becoming of a new individuality and the death of the first, immediate one; but on the other hand, the Notion of life that has withdrawn into itself is the becoming of the Notion that is in relationship with itself and exists universally and freely for itself − the transition into cognition. A The Living Individual B The Life Process C The Genus [Kind] Chapter 2 The Idea of Cognition § 1677 Life is the immediate Idea, or the Idea as its Notion not yet realised in its own self. In its judgement, the Idea is cognition in general. The Notion is, as Notion, for itself in so far as it freely exists as abstract universality or as genus. As such, it is its pure self−identity, which inwardly differentiates itself in such a manner that the differentiated moment is not an objectivity, but is likewise liberated into subjectivity or the form of simple selflikeness, and hence the object of the Notion is the Notion itself. Its reality in general is the form of its determinate being and the point of interest is the determination this form, on this determination rests the difference between what the Notion is in itself or as subjective and what it is when submerged in objectivity, and then in the Idea of life. § 1678 In the latter it is indeed distinguished from its external reality and posited for itself, yet this its being−for−self it possesses only as the identity that is a relation to itself as submerged in its subjugated objectivity, or to itself as indwelling, substantial form. The elevation of the Notion above life means that its reality is the Notion form liberated into universality. Through this judgement the Idea is duplicated into the subjective Notion whose reality is the Notion itself, and into the objective Notion that is in the form of life. Thinking, spirit, self−consciousness, are determinations of the Idea where it has itself for object, and its determinate being, that is, the determinateness of its being, is its own difference from itself. § 1679 The metaphysics of the spirit, or, as it was more commonly expressed, of the soul revolved round the determinations of substance, simplicity, immateriality −− determinations in which the general idea of spirit taken from empirical consciousness, was laid down as subject, and it was then asked, What predicates agree with our observations? This kind of procedure could get no further than the procedure of physics, which Science of Logic Chapter 2 The Idea of Cognition 142 reduces the world of phenomena to general laws and reflective determinations since it too was based on spirit merely in its phenomenal aspect; in fact this procedure was bound to fall short even of the scientific character of physics. § 1680 Since spirit is not only infinitely richer than nature, but also, its essence is constituted by the absolute unity of opposites in the Notion, it exhibits in its phenomenal aspect and relation to externality contradiction in its extreme form. Consequently, it must be possible to adduce an experience in support of each of the opposed reflective determinations, or starting from experience it must be possible to arrive at opposite determinations by way of formal syllogistic reasoning. § 1681 Since the predicates immediately yielded by spirit's phenomenal aspect in the first instance still belong to empirical Psychology, there only remain, strictly speaking, for the metaphysical consideration, the wholly inadequate determinations of reflection. Kant, in his criticism of rational psychology adheres to this metaphysics, insisting that, in so far as rational psychology purports to be a rational science, the smallest addition from observation to the general idea of selfconsciousness would transform that science into an empirical one and mar its rational purity and its independence of all experience. Consequently, on this view, nothing is left but the simple representation, 'I', a representation devoid of any content of its own, of which we cannot even say that it is a notion but a mere consciousness that accompanies every notion. Now according to the further Kantian conclusions, by this 'I', or if you like, it (the thing) that thinks, nothing further is represented than a transcendental subject of thoughts = x, which is cognised only through the thoughts which are its predicates, and of which, taken in its isolation, we can never have the least conception. In this context, the 'I' has the inconvenience, to use Kant's own expression that we must already make use of it whenever we want make any judgement about it; for it is not so much a single representation by which a particular object is distinguished, but rather a form of representation in general in so far as this is to be called cognition. Now the paralogism committed by rational psychology, says Kant, consists in this, that modes of self−consciousness in thinking are converted into notions of the understanding as applied to an object; that the 'I think' is taken as a thinking being, a thing−in−itself; and that in this way, from the fact that I always occur in consciousness as a subject, and that too as a singular subject, identical in all the multiplicity of representation, and distinguishing myself from the latter as from something external to me, the unjustified inference is drawn that the 'I' is a substance, and further a qualitatively simple being, and a one, and something that has a real existence independently of the things of time and space. § 1682 I have drawn out this exposition in some detail, because it shows clearly the nature of the previous metaphysics of the soul and especially, too, the nature of the criticism by which it was made obsolete. The former aimed at determining the abstract essence of the soul; in doing so, it started originally from observation and converted the empirical universality of observation and the wholly external reflective determination attaching to the individuality of the actual, into the form of the above−mentioned determinations of essence. Kant in his criticism had generally in mind only the state of the metaphysics of his time, which in the main adhered to these abstract, one−sided determinations wholly devoid of dialectic; the genuinely speculative ideas of older philosophers on the notion of spirit he neither heeded nor examined. In his criticism then of those determinations, he followed quite simply Hume's style of scepticism; that is to say, he holds fast to the 'I' as it appears in self−consciousness, from which, however, since it is its essence −− the thing−in−itself −− that we are to cognise, −− everything empirical must be omitted; nothing then is left but this phenomenon of the 'I think' that accompanies every representation −− of which 'I think' we have not the Science of Logic Chapter 2 The Idea of Cognition 143 slightest conception. § 1683 Certainly, it must be conceded that we have not the least conception the 'I', or of anything whatever, not even of the Notion itself, so long as we do not really think, but stop short at the simple, fixed general idea and the name. It is an odd thought −− if it can be called a thought at all −− that I must already make use of the 'I' in order to judge of the 'I'; the 'I' that makes use of self−consciousness as a means in order to judge, this is indeed an x of which, as well as of the relationship of such 'making use', we cannot have the slightest conception. But surely it is ridiculous to call this nature of self−consciousness, namely, that the 'I' thinks itself, that the 'I' cannot be thought without its being the 'I' that thinks, an inconvenience and, as though there was a fallacy in it, a circle. It is this relationship through which, in immediate self−consciousness, the absolute, eternal nature of self−consciousness and the Notion itself manifests itself, and manifests itself for this reason, that self−consciousness is just the existent pure Notion, and therefore empirically perceptible, the absolute relation−to−self that, as a separating judgement, makes itself its own object and is solely this process whereby it makes itself a circle. § 1684 A stone does not have this inconvenience; when it is to be thought or judged it does not stand in its own way. It is relieved from the burden of making use of itself for this task; it is something else outside it that must give itself this trouble. Kant's Critique of Rational Psychology A The Idea of the True § 1698 The subjective Idea is in the first instance an urge. For it is the contradiction of the Notion to have itself for object and to be its own reality, yet without the object being an other, that is, self−subsistent over against it, or without the difference of the Notion from itself possessing at the same time the essential determination of diversity and indifferent existence. The specific nature of this urge is therefore to sublate its own subjectivity, to make its first, abstract reality into a concrete one and to fill it with the content of the world presupposed by its subjectivity. § 1699 From the other side, this urge is determined in the following manner: the Notion is, it is true, the absolute certainty of itself; but its being−for−self is confronted by its presupposition of a world having the form of implicit being, but a world whose indifferent otherness has for the self−certainty of the Notion the value merely of an unessentiality; it is thus the urge to sublate this otherness and to intuit in the object its identity with itself. This reflection−into−self is the sublated opposition, and the individuality which initially appears as the presupposed implicit being of a world is now posited as individuality and made actual for the subject; accordingly the reflection−into−self is the self−identity of the form restored out of the opposition −− an identity that is therefore determined as indifferent to the form in its distinctiveness and is content. § 1700 This urge is therefore the urge to truth in so far as truth is in cognition, accordingly to truth in its proper sense Science of Logic Kant's Critique of Rational Psychology 144 as theoretical Idea. Objective truth is no doubt the Idea itself as the reality that corresponds to the Notion, and to this extent an object may or may not possess truth; but, on the other hand, the more precise meaning of truth is that it is truth for or in the subjective Notion, in knowing. It is the relation of the Notion judgment which showed itself to be the formal judgment of truth; in it, namely, the predicate is not merely the objectivity of the Notion, but the relating comparison of the Notion of the subject−matter with its actuality. This realisation of the Notion is theoretical in so far as the Notion, as form, has still the determination of subjectivity, or has still the determination for the subject of being its own determination. Because cognition is the Idea as end as subjective, the negation of the world presupposed as an implicit being is the first negation; therefore also the conclusion in which the objective is posited in the subjective, has at first only this meaning, that the implicit being is only posited in the form of subjectivity, or in the Notion determination, and for this reason is not, in that form, in and for itself. Thus the conclusion only attains to a neutral unity or a synthesis, that is, to a unity of things that are originally separate and only are externally so conjoined. Since therefore in this cognition the Notion posits the object as its own, the Idea in the first instance only gives itself a content whose basis is given, and in which only the form of externality has been sublated. § 1701 Accordingly, this cognition still retains its finitude in its realised end; in its realised end it has at the same time not attained its end, and in its truth has not yet arrived at truth. For in so far as in the result the content still has the character of a datum, the presupposed implicit being confronting the Notion is not sublated; equally therefore the unity of Notion and reality, truth, is also not contained in it. Oddly enough, it is his side of finitude that latterly has been clung to, and accepted as the absolute relation of cognition −− as though the finite as such was supposed to be the absolute! At this standpoint, the object is credited with being an unknown thing−in−itself behind cognition, and this character of the object, and with it truth too is regarded as an absolute beyond for cognition. In this view of cognition, thought determinations in general, the categories, reflective determinations, as well as the for Notion and its moments are assigned the position of being finite determinations not in and for themselves, but finite in the sense that they are subjective in rely on to this empty thing−in−itself, the fallacy of taking this untrue relation of cognition as the true relation has become the universal opinion of modern times. § 1702 From this determination of finite cognition it is immediately evident that it is a contradiction that sublates itself −− the contradiction of a truth that at the same time is supposed not to be truth −− of a cognition of what is, which at the same time does not cognise the thing−in−itself. In the collapse of this contradiction, its content, subjective cognition and the thing−in−itself, collapses, that is, proves itself an untruth. But cognition must, in the course of its own movement, resolve its finitude and with it its contradiction; this examination of it made by us is an external reflection; but cognition is itself the Notion, the Notion that is its own end and therefore through its realisation fulfils itself, and in this very fulfilment sublates its subjectivity and the presupposed implicit being. We have therefore to consider cognition in its own self in its positive activity. Since this Idea is, as we have seen, the urge of the Notion to realise itself for itself, its activity consists in determining the object, and by this determining to relate itself in the object identically to itself. The object is in general something simply determinable, and in the Idea it has this essential side of not being in and for itself opposed to the Notion. Because cognition is still finite, not speculative, cognition, the presupposed objectivity has not as yet for it the shape of something that is in its own self simply and solely the Notion and that contains nothing with a particularity of its own as against the latter. § 1703 But the fact that it counts as an implicit beyond, necessarily implies that its determinability by the Notion is a determination it possesses essentially; for the Idea is the Notion that exists for itself, is that which is Science of Logic Kant's Critique of Rational Psychology 145 absolutely infinite within itself, in which the object is implicitly sublated and the end is now solely to sublate it explicitly. Hence, though the object is presupposed by the Idea of cognition as possessing an implicit being, yet it is essentially in a relationship where the Idea, certain of itself and of the nullity of this opposition, comes to the realisation of its Notion in the object. § 1704 In the syllogism whereby the subjective Idea now unites itself with objectivity, the first premise is the same form of immediate seizure and relation of the Notion to the object that we saw in the relation of end. The determining activity of the Notion upon the object is an immediate communication of itself to the object and unresisted pervasion of the latter by the Notion. In this process the Notion remains in pure identity with itself; but this its immediate reflection−into−self has equally the determination of objective immediacy; that which for the Notion is its own determination, is equally a being, for it is the first negation of the presupposition. Therefore the posited determination ranks just as much as a presupposition that has been merely found, as an apprehension of a datum; in fact the activity of the Notion here consists merely in being negative towards itself, restraining itself and making itself passive towards what confronts it, in order that the latter may be able to show itself, not as determined by the subject, but as it is in its own self. § 1705 Accordingly in this premise this cognition does not appear even as an application of logical determinations, but as an acceptance and apprehension of them just as given, and its activity appears to be restricted merely to the removal of a subjective obstacle, an external husk, from the subject−matter. This cognition is analytic cognition. (a) Analytic Cognition § 1706 We sometimes find the difference between analytic and synthetic cognition stated in the form that one proceeds from the known to the unknown, the other from the unknown to the known. But if this distinction is closely examined, it will be difficult to discover in it a definite thought, much less a Notion. § 1707 It may be said that cognition begins in general with ignorance, for one does not learn to know something with which one is already acquainted. Conversely, it also begins with the known; this is a tautological proposition; that with which it begins, which therefore it actually cognises, is ipso facto something known; what is not as yet known and is to be known only later is still an unknown. So far, then, it must be said that cognition, once it has begun, always proceeds from the known to the unknown. § 1708 The distinguishing feature of analytic cognition is already defined in the fact that as the first premise of the whole syllogism, analytic cognition does not as yet contain mediation; it is the immediate communication of the Notion and does not as yet contain otherness, and in it the activity empties itself of its negativity. However, this immediacy of the relation is for that reason itself a mediation, for it is the negative relation of the Notion to the object, but a relation that annuls itself, thereby making itself simple and identical. This reflection−into−self is only subjective, because in its mediation the difference is present still only in the form of the presupposed implicit difference, as difference of the object within itself. The determination, therefore, brought about by this relation, is the form of simple identity, of abstract universality. Accordingly, analytic Science of Logic Kant's Critique of Rational Psychology 146 cognition has in general this identity for its principle; and transition into an other, the connection of different terms, is excluded from itself and from its activity. § 1709 If we look now more closely at analytic cognition, we see that it starts from a presupposed, and therefore individual, concrete subject matter; this may be an object already complete in itself for ordinary thought, or it may be a problem, that is to say, given only in its circumstances and conditions, but not yet disengaged from them and presented on its own account in simple self−subsistence. Now the analysis of this subject matter cannot consist in its being merely resolved into the particular picture thoughts which it may contain; such a resolution and the apprehension of such picture thoughts is a business that would not belong to cognition, but would merely be a matter of a closer acquaintance, a determination within the sphere of picture−thinking. Since analysis is based on the Notion, its products are essentially Notion−determinations, and that too as determinations immediately contained in the subject matter. § 1710 We have seen from the nature of the Idea of cognition, that the activity of the subjective Notion must be regarded from one side merely as the explication of what is already in the object, because the object itself is nothing but the totality of the Notion. It is just as one−sided to represent analysis as though there were nothing in the subject matter that was not imported into it, as it is one−sided to suppose that the resulting determinations are merely extracted from it. The former view, as everyone knows, is enunciated by subjective idealism, which takes the activity of cognition in analysis to be merely a one−sided positing, beyond which the thing−in−itself remains concealed; the other view belongs to so−called realism which apprehends the subjective Notion as an empty Identity that receives the thought determinations into itself from outside. Analytic cognition, the transformation of the given material into logical determinations, has shown itself to be two things in one: a positing that no less immediately determines itself as a presupposing. Consequently, by virtue of the latter, the logical element may appear as something already complete in the object, just as by virtue of the former it may appear as the product of a merely subjective activity. But the two moments are not to be separated; the logical element in its abstract form into which analysis raises it, is of course only to be found in cognition, while conversely it is something not merely posited, but possessing being in itself. § 1711 Now since analytic cognition is the transformation indicated above, it does not pass through any further middle term; the determination is in so far immediate and has just this meaning, to be peculiar to the object and in itself to belong to it, and therefore to be apprehended from it without any subjective mediation. But further, cognition is supposed also to be a progress, an explication of differences. But because, in accordance with the determination it has here, it is Notion−less and undialectical, it possesses only a given difference, and its progress takes place solely in the determinations of the material. It seems to have an immanent progress only in so far as the derived thought determinations can be analysed afresh, in so far as they are a concrete; the highest and ultimate point of this process of analysis is the abstract highest essence, or abstract subjective identity −− and over against it, diversity. § 1712 This progress is, however, nothing but the mere repetition of the one original act of analysis, namely, the fresh determination as a concrete, of what has already been taken up into the abstract form of the Notion; this is followed by the analysis of it, then by the determination afresh as a concrete of the abstract that emerges from it, and so forth. But the thought determinations seem also to contain a transition within themselves. If the object is determined as a whole, then of course one advances from this to the other determination of part, Science of Logic Kant's Critique of Rational Psychology 147 from cause to the other determination of effect, and so on. But here this is no advance, since whole and part, cause and effect, are relationships and moreover, for this formal cognition, relationships complete in themselves such that in them one determination is already found essentially linked to the other. The subject matter that has been determined as cause or as part is ipso facto determined by the whole relationship, that is, determined already by both sides of it. Although the relationship is in itself something synthetic, yet for analytic cognition this connection is as much a mere datum as any other connection of its material and therefore is not relevant to its own peculiar business. Whether a connection of this kind be otherwise determined as a priori or a posteriori is here a matter of indifference, for it is apprehended as something found already there, or, as it has also been described, as a fact of consciousness that with the determination whole is linked the determination part, and so forth. While Kant has made the profound observation that there are synthetic a priori principles and has recognised their root in the unity of self−consciousness and therefore in the identity of the Notion with itself, yet he adopts the specific connection, the concepts of relation and the synthetic principles themselves from formal logic as given; their justification should have been the exposition of the transition of that simple unity of self−consciousness into these its determinations and distinctions, but Kant spared himself the trouble of demonstrating this genuinely synthetic progress −− the self−producing Notion. Analytical Science (b) Synthetic Cognition § 1720 Analytic cognition is the first premise of the whole syllogism −− the immediate relation of the Notion to the object; identity, therefore, is the determination which it recognises as its own, and analytic cognition is merely the apprehension of what is. Synthetic cognition aims at the comprehension of what is, that is, at grasping the multiplicity of determinations in their unity. It is therefore the second premise of the syllogism in which the diverse as such is related. Hence its aim is in general necessity. The different terms which are connected, are on the one hand connected in a relation; in this relation they are related and at the same time mutually indifferent and self−subsistent, but on the other hand, they are linked together in the Notion which is their simple yet determinate unity. Now synthetic cognition passes over, in the first instance, from abstract identity to relation, or from being to reflection, and so far it is not the absolute reflection of the Notion that the Notion cognises in its subject matter. The reality it gives itself is the next stage, namely, the stated identity of the different terms as such, an identity therefore that is at the same time still inner and only necessity, not the subjective identity that is for itself; hence not yet the Notion as such. Synthetic cognition, therefore, has indeed the Notion determinations for its content, and the object is posited in them; but they only stand in relation to one another, or are in immediate unity, and just for that reason, not in the unity by which the Notion exists as subject. § 1721 This constitutes the finitude of this cognition; because this real side of the Idea in it still possesses identity as an inner identity, its determinations are to themselves still external; because the identity is not in the form of subjectivity, the Notion's own pervasion of the object still lacks individuality; what corresponds to the Notion in the object is indeed no longer the abstract but the determinate form and therefore the particularity of the Notion, but the individual element in the object is still a given content. Consequently, although this cognition transforms the objective world into Notions, it gives it Notion−determinations only in respect of form, and must find the object in respect of its individuality, its specific determinateness; such cognition is not yet self−determining. Similarly, it finds propositions and laws, and proves their necessity, but not as a necessity of the subject matter in and for itself, that is, not from the Notion, but as a necessity of the cognition that Science of Logic Analytical Science 148 works on given determinations, on the differences of the phenomenal aspect of the subject matter, and cognises for itself the proposition as a unity and relationship, or cognises the ground of phenomena from the phenomena themselves. We have now to consider the detailed moments of synthetic cognition. 1. Definition § 1722 First, the still given objectivity is transformed into the simple and first form, hence into the form of the Notion. Accordingly the moments of this apprehension are none other than the moments of the Notion, universality, particularity and individuality. The individual is the object itself as an immediate representation, that which is to be defined. The universality of the object of definition we have found in the determination of the objective judgement or judgement of necessity to be the genus, and indeed the proximate genus; that is to say, the universal with this determinateness that is at the same time a principle for the differentiation of the particular. This difference the object possesses in the specific difference, which makes it the determinate species it is and is the basis of its disjunction from the remaining species. § 1723 Definition, in thus reducing the subject matter to its Notion, strips it of its externalities which are requisite for its concrete existence; it abstracts from what accrues to the Notion in its realisation, whereby it emerges first into Idea, and secondly into external existence. Description is for representation, and takes in this further content that belongs to reality. But definition reduces this wealth of the manifold determinations of intuited existence to the simplest moments; the form of these simple elements, and how they are determined relatively to one another, is contained in the Notion. The subject matter is thus, as we have stated, grasped as a universal that is at the same time essentially determinate. The subject matter itself is the third factor, the individual, in which the genus and the particularisation are posited in one; it is an immediate that is posited outside the Notion, since the latter is not yet self−determining. § 1724 In the said moments, which are the form−difference of definition, the Notion finds itself and has in them the reality correspondent to it. But the reflection of the Notion−moments into themselves, which is individuality, is not yet contained in this reality, and therefore the object, in so far as it is in cognition, is not yet determined as subjective. Whereas, cognition on the contrary is subjective and has an external starting point, or it is subjective by reason of its external starting point in the individual. The content of the Notion is therefore a datum and contingent. Consequently, the concrete Notion itself is contingent in a twofold aspect: first it is contingent in respect of its content as such; secondly it is contingent which determinations of the content from among the manifold qualities that the object possesses in external existence are to be selected for the Notion and are to constitute its moments. § 1725 The latter point requires closer consideration. For since individuality, which is determined in and for itself, lies outside the Notion−determination peculiar to synthetic cognition there is no principle available for determining which sides of the subject matter are to be regarded as belonging to its Notion−determination and which merely to the external reality. This constitutes a difficulty in the case of definitions, a difficulty that for synthetic cognition cannot be overcome. Yet here a distinction must be made. In the first place, the definition of products of self−conscious purposiveness is easily discovered; for the end that they are to serve Science of Logic Analytical Science 149 is a determination created out of the subjective resolve and constituting the essential particularisation, the form of the concrete existent thing, which is here the sole concern. Apart from this, the nature of its material and its other external properties, in so far as they correspond to the end, are contained in its determination; the rest are unessential for it. § 1726 Secondly, geometrical objects are abstract determinations of space; the underlying abstraction, so−called absolute space, has lost all further concrete determinations and now too possesses only such shapes and configurations as are posited in it. These objects therefore are only what they are meant to be; their Notion determination in general, and more precisely the specific difference, possesses in them its simple unhindered reality. To this extent, they resemble the products of external purposiveness, and they also agree with the subject matter of arithmetic in which likewise the underlying determination is only that which has been posited in it. True, space has still further determinations: its three−dimensionality, its continuity and divisibility, which are not first posited in it by external determination. But these belong to the accepted material and are immediate presuppositions; it is only the combination and entanglement of the former subjective determinations with this peculiar nature of the domain into which they have been imported that produces synthetic relationships and laws. In the case of numerical determinations, since they are based on the simple principle of the One, their combination and any further determination is simply and solely a positedness; on the other hand, determinations in space, which is explicitly a continuous mutual externality, run a further course of their own and possess a reality distinct from their Notion; but this no longer belongs to the immediate definition. § 1727 But, thirdly, in the case of definitions of concrete objects of Nature as well as of spirit, the position is quite different. In general such objects are, for representation, things of many properties. Here, what we have to do in the first instance is to apprehend what is their proximate genus, and then, what is their specific difference. We have therefore to determine which of the many properties belong to the object as genus, and which as species, and further which among these properties is the essential one; this last point involves the necessity of ascertaining their interrelationship, whether one is already posited with the other. But for this purpose there is so far no other criterion to hand than existence itself. The essentiality of the property for the purpose of the definition, in which it is to be posited as a simple, undeveloped determinateness, is its universality. But in existence universality is merely empirical. It may be universality in time−whether the property in question is lasting, while the others show themselves transitory in the subsistence of the whole; or it may be a universality resulting from comparison with other concrete wholes and in that case it goes no further than community. Now if comparison indicates as the common basis the total habitue as empirically presented, reflection has to bring this together into a simple thought determination and to grasp the simple character of such a totality. But the only possible attestation that a thought determination, or a single one of the immediate properties, constitutes the simple and specific essence of the object, is the derivation of such a determination from the concrete properties of the subject matter. But this would demand an analysis transforming the immediate properties into thoughts and reducing what is concrete to something simple. Such an analysis, however, would be higher than the one already considered; for it could not be abstractive, but would have to preserve in the universal what is specific in the concrete, unify it and show it to be dependent on the simple thought determination. § 1728 The relations of the manifold determinations of immediate existence to the simple Notion would however be theorems requiring proof. But definition is the first, still undeveloped Notion; therefore, when it has to apprehend the simple determinateness of the subject matter, which apprehension has to be something Science of Logic Analytical Science 150 immediate, it can only employ for the purpose one of its immediate so−called properties−a determination of sensuous existence or representation. The isolation, then, of this property by abstraction, constitutes simplicity, and for universality and essentiality the Notion has to fall back onto empirical universality, the persistence in altered circumstances, and the reflection that seeks the Notion−determination in external existence and in picture thinking, that is, seeks it where it is not to be found. Definition, therefore, automatically renounces the Notion−determinations proper, which would be essentially principles of the subject matter, and contents itself with marks, that is, determinations in which essentiality for the object itself is a matter of indifference, and which are intended merely to be distinguishing marks for an external reflection. A single, external determinateness of this kind is too inadequate to the concrete totality and to the nature of its Notion, to justify its selection for its own sake, nor could it be taken for the true expression and determination of a concrete whole. According to Blumenbach's observation, for example, the lobe of the ear is absent in all other animals, and therefore in the usual phraseology of common and distinguishing marks it could quite properly be used as the distinctive characteristic in the definition of physical man. But how inadequate such a completely external determination at once appears when compared with the conception of the total habitue of physical man, and with the demand that the Notion determination shall be something essential! It is quite contingent whether the, marks adopted in the definition are pure makeshifts like this, or on the other hand approximate more to the nature of a principle. It is also to be observed that, on account of their externality, they have not been the starting point in the cognition of the Notion of the object; on the contrary, an obscure feeling, an indefinite but deeper sense, an inkling of what is essential, has preceded the discovery of the genera in nature and in spirit, and only afterwards has a specific externality been sought to satisfy the understanding. In existence the Notion has entered into externality and is accordingly explicated into its differences and cannot be attached simply to a single one of such properties. The properties, as the externality of the thing, are external to themselves; that is why, as we pointed out in the sphere of Appearance when dealing with the thing of many properties, properties essentially become even self−subsistent matters; spirit, regarded from the same standpoint of Appearance, becomes an aggregate of a number of self−subsistent forces. Through this standpoint, the single property or force, even where it is posited as indifferent to the others, ceases to be a characterising principle, with the result that the determinateness, as determinateness of the Notion, vanishes altogether. § 1729 Into concrete things, along with the diversity of the properties among themselves, there enters also the difference between the Notion and its actualisation. The Notion in nature and in spirit has an external presentation in which its determinateness shows itself as dependence on the external, as transitoriness and inadequacy. Therefore, although any actual thing no doubt shows in itself what it ought to be, yet in accordance with the negative judgement of the Notion it may equally show that its actuality only imperfectly corresponds to this Notion, that it is bad. Now the definition is supposed to indicate the determinateness of the Notion in an immediate property; yet there is no property against which an instance cannot be brought in which the total habitus, though it enables one to discern the concrete thing to be defined, yet the property taken as its characteristic shows itself immature or stunted. In a bad plant, a poor specimen of an animal, a contemptible human being, a bad state, aspects of its concrete existence are defective or entirely obliterated that otherwise might have been adopted for the definition as the distinguishing mark and essential determinateness in the existence of such a concrete. But for all that, a bad plant or a bad animal, etc., still remains a plant or an animal. If, therefore, bad specimens too are to be covered by the definition, then all the properties that we wanted to regard as essential elude us through instances of malformations in which tho se properties a re lacking. Thus for example the essentiality of the brain for physical man is contradicted by the instance of acephalous individuals, the essentiality of the protection of life and property for the state, by the instance of despotic states and tyrannous governments. If the Notion is asserted against such an instance and the instance, being measured by the Notion, is declared to be a bad specimen, then the Notion is no longer attested by phenomena. But the self−subsistence of the Notion is contrary to the meaning of definition; for definition is supposed to be the immediate Notion, and therefore can only draw on the immediacy of Science of Logic Analytical Science 151 existence for its determinations for objects, and can justify itself only in what it finds already to hand. Whether its content is in−and−for itself truth or a contingency, this lies outside its sphere; but formal truth, the agreement between the Notion subjectively posited in the definition and an actual object outside it, cannot be established because the individual object may also be a bad specimen. § 1730 The content of definition is in general taken from immediate existence, and being an immediate content has no justification; the question of its necessity is precluded by its origin; in enunciating the Notion as a mere immediate, the definition refrains from comprehending the Notion itself. Hence it represents nothing but the form determination of the Notion in a given content, without the reflection of the Notion into itself, that is, without the Notion's being−for−self. § 1731 But immediacy in general proceeds only from mediation, and must therefore pass over into mediation. Or, in other words, the determinateness of the content contained in the definition, because it is determinateness, is not merely an immediate, but is mediated by its opposite; consequently definition can apprehend its subject matter only through the opposite determination and must therefore pass over into division. 2. Division 3. The Theorem Axioms § 1763 In synthetic cognition, therefore, the Idea attains its end only to the extent that the Notion becomes for the Notion according to its moments of identity and real determinations, or of universality and particular differences −− further also as an identity that is the connection and dependence of the diverse elements. But this subject matter of the Notion is not adequate to it; for the Notion does not come to be the unity of itself with itself in its subject matter or its reality; in necessity its identity is for it; but in this identity the necessity is not itself the determinateness, but appears as a matter external to the identity, that is, as a matter not determined by the Notion, a matter, therefore, in which the Notion does not cognise itself. Thus in general the Notion is not for itself, is not at the same time determined in and for itself according to its unity. Hence in this cognition the Idea which falls short of truth on account of the inadequacy of the subject matter to the subjective Notion. But the sphere of necessity is the apex of being and reflection; through its own essential nature it passes into its manifestation, which is the Notion as Notion. How this transition from the sphere of necessity into the Notion is effected in principle has been shown in treating of necessity; the same transition also presented itself as the genesis of the Notion at the beginning of this Book. § 1764 Here necessity has the position of being the reality or subject matter of the Notion, just as the Notion into which it passes now appears as the Notion's subject matter. But the transition itself is the same. Here too it is only at first implicit and lies as yet outside cognition in our reflection; that is, it is still the inner necessity of the cognition itself. It is only the result that is for it. The Idea, in so far as the Notion is now explicitly determined in and for itself, is the practical Idea, or action. The Idea of the Good − Next Section Science of Logic Analytical Science 152 The Doctrine of the Notion The Idea of the Good § 1765 The Notion, which is its own subject matter, being determined in and for itself, the subject is determined for itself as an individual. As subjective it again presupposes an implicit otherness; it is the urge to realise itself, the end that wills by means of itself to give itself objectivity and to realise itself in the objective world. In the theoretical Idea the subjective Notion, as the universal that lacks any determination of its own, stands opposed to the objective world from which it takes to itself a determinate content and filling. But in the practical Idea it is as actual that it confronts the actual; but the certainty of itself which the subject possesses in being determinate in and for itself is a certainty of its own actuality and the non−actuality of the world; it is not only the world's otherness as an abstract universality that is a nullity for the subject, but the world's individuality and the determination of its individuality. The subject has here vindicated objectivity for itself; its immanent determinateness is the objective, for it is the universality that is just as much absolutely determined; the formerly objective world, on the contrary, is now only something posited, something immediately determined in various ways, but because it is only immediately determined, the unity of the Notion is lacking in it and it is, by itself, a nullity. § 1766 This determinateness contained in the Notion and in the likeness of the Notion, and including within it the demand for an individual external actuality, is the good. It comes upon the scene with the worth of being absolute, because it is within itself the totality of the Notion, the objective that is at the same time in the form of free unity and subjectivity. This Idea is superior to the Idea of cognition already considered, for it possesses not only the worth of the universal but also of the out−and−out actual. It is an urge in so far as this actuality is still subjective, positing its own self and not having at the same time the form of immediate presupposition; its urge to realise itself is, strictly speaking, not to give itself objectivity this it possesses within itself but merely this empty form of immediacy. Hence the activity of the end is not directed against itself in order to adopt and appropriate a given determination and by sublating the determinateness of the external world to give itself reality in the form of external actuality. The Idea of the will as explicitly self−determining possesses the content within itself. Now it is true that this is a determinate content and to that extent something finite and limited; self−determination is essentially particularisation, since the reflection of the will into itself as a negative unity in general is also individuality in the sense of the exclusion and presupposition of an other. Nevertheless, the particularity of the content is in the first instance infinite through the form of the Notion, whose own determinateness it is; and in this content the Notion possesses its negative self−identity, and therefore not merely a particular, but its own infinite individuality. Consequently, the above−mentioned finitude of the content in the practical Idea is tantamount to the latter being in the first instance the not yet realised Idea; the Notion is, for the content, something that is in and for itself; it is here the Idea in the form of objectivity that is for itself; on the one hand, the subjective is for this reason no longer something merely posited, arbitrary or contingent, but an absolute; but on the other hand, this form of concrete existence, being−for−self, has not yet the form of the in−itself as well. What thus appears in respect of form as such, as opposition, appears in the form of the Notion reflected into simple identity, that is, appears in the content as its simple determinateness; thus the good, although valid in and for itself, is some particular end, but an end that has not to wait to receive its truth through its realisation, but is already on its own account the true. § 1767 Science of Logic The Doctrine of the Notion The Idea of the Good 153 The syllogism of immediate realisation itself requires no detailed exposition here; it is altogether the same as the syllogism of external purposiveness considered above; it is only the content that constitutes the difference. In external as in formal purposiveness, it was an indeterminate finite content in general; here, though it is finite too, it is as such at the same time as absolutely valid content. But in regard to the conclusion, to the realised end, a further difference comes in. The finite end in its realisation, all the same, gets no further than a means; since in its beginning it is not an end already determined in and for itself, it remains even when realised an end that is not in and for itself. If the good again is also fixed as something finite, if it is essentially such, then notwithstanding its inner infinitude it cannot escape the destiny of finitude a destiny that manifests itself in a number of forms. The realised good is good by virtue of what it already is in the subjective end, in its Idea; realisation gives it an external existence; but since his existence is determined merely as an intrinsically worthless externality, in it the good has only attained a contingent, destructible existence, not a realisation corresponding to its Idea. Further, since in respect of its content the good is restricted, there are several kinds of good; good in its concrete existence is not only subject to destruction by external contingency and by evil, but by the collision and conflict of the good itself. From the side of the objective world presupposed for it, in the presupposition of which the subjectivity and finitude of the good consists, and which as a different world goes its own way, the very realisation of the good is exposed to obstacles, obstacles which may indeed even be insurmountable. § 1768 In this way, the good remains an ought−to−be; it is in and for itself, but being, as the ultimate abstract immediacy, remains also confronting is in the form of a not−being. § 1769 The Idea of the realised good is, it is true, an absolute postulate, but it is no more than a postulate, that is, the absolute afflicted with the determinateness of subjectivity. There are still two worlds in opposition, one a realm of subjectivity in the pure regions of transparent thought, the other a realm of objectivity in the element of an externally manifold actuality that is an undisclosed realm of darkness. The complete elaboration of the unresolved contradiction between that absolute end and the limitation of this actuality that insuperably opposes it, has been considered in detail in the Phenomenology of Spirit. § 1770 As the Idea contains within itself the moment of complete determinateness, the other Notion with which the Notion enters into relation in the Idea, possesses in its subjectivity also the moment of an object; consequently the Idea enter here into the shape of self−consciousness and in this one aspect coincides with the exposition of the same. § 1771 But what is still lacking in the practical Idea is the moment of consciousness proper itself; namely, that the moment of actuality in the Notion should have attained on its own account the determination of external being. § 1772 Another way of regarding this defect is that the practical Idea still lacks the moment of the theoretical Idea. That is to say, in the latter there stands on the side of the subjective Notion −− the Notion that is in process of being intuited within itself by the Notion only the determination of universality; cognition knows itself only as apprehension, as the identity on its own account indeterminate of the Notion with itself; the filling, that is, Science of Logic The Doctrine of the Notion The Idea of the Good 154 the objectivity that is determined in and for itself, is for it a datum, and what truly is is the actuality there before it independently of subjective positing. For the practical Idea, on the contrary, this actuality, which at the same time confronts it as an insuperable limitation, ranks as something intrinsically worthless that must first receive its true determination and sole worth through the ends of the good. Hence it is only the will itself that stands in the way of attainment of its goal, for it separates itself from cognition, and external reality for the will does not receive the form of a true being; the Idea of the good can therefore find its integration only in the Idea of the true. § 1773 But it makes this transition through itself. In the syllogism of action, one premise is the immediate relation of the good end to actuality which it seizes on, and in the second premise directs it as an external means against the external actuality. § 1774 For the subjective Notion the good is the objective; actuality in its existence confronts is as an insuperable limitation only in so far as it still has the character of immediate existence, not of something objective in the sense of a being that is in and for itself; on the contrary, it is either the evil or the indifferent, the merely determinable, whose worth does not reside within it. This abstract being that confronts the good in the second premise has, however, already been sublated by the practical Idea itself; the first premise of the latter's action is the immediate objectivity of the Notion, according to which the end communicates itself to actuality without meeting any resistance and is in simple identical relation with it. Thus all that remains to be done is to bring together the thoughts of its two premises. To what has been already immediately accomplished by the objective Notion in the first premise, the only addition made in the second premise is that it is posited through mediation, and hence posited for the objective Notion. Now just as in the end relation in general, the realised end is also again merely a means, while conversely the means is also the realised end, so similarly in the syllogism of the good, the second premise is immediately already present implicitly in the first; but this immediacy is not sufficient, and the second premise is already postulated for the first −− the realisation of the good in the face of another actuality confronting it is the mediation which is essentially necessary for the immediate relation and the accomplished actualisation of the good. § 1775 For it is only the first negation or the otherness of the Notion, an objectivity that would be a submergence of the Notion in the externality; the second negation is the sublating of this otherness, whereby the immediate realisation of the end first becomes the actuality the Notion is posited as identical with itself, not with an other, and thus alone is posited as the free Notion. § 1776 Now if it is supposed that the end of the good is after all not realised through this mediation, this signifies a relapse of the Notion to the standpoint occupied by it before its activity −− the standpoint of an actuality determined as worthless and yet presupposed as real. This relapse, which becomes the progress to the spurious infinity, has its sole ground in the fact that in the sublating of that abstract reality this sublating is no less immediately forgotten, or it is forgotten that this reality is in fact already presupposed as an actuality that is intrinsically worthless and not objective. § 1777 Science of Logic The Doctrine of the Notion The Idea of the Good 155 This repetition of the presupposition of the end consequently assumes this character, that the subjective bearing of the objective Notion is reproduced and made perpetual, with the result that the finitude of the good in respect of its content as well as its form appears as the abiding truth, and its actualisation appears as a merely individual act, and not as a universal one. As a matter of fact this determinateness has sublated itself in the actualisation of the good; what still limits the objective Notion is its own view of itself, which vanishes by reflection on what its actualisation is in itself. Through this view it is only standing in its own way, and thus what it has to do is to turn, not against an outer actuality, but against itself. § 1778 In other words, the activity in the second premise produces only a one−sided being−for−self, and its product therefore appears as something subjective and individual, and consequently the first presupposition is repeated in it. But this activity is in truth no less the positing of the implicit identity of the objective Notion and the immediate actuality. This latter is determined by the presupposition as having a phenomenal reality only, as being intrinsically worthless and simply and solely determinable by the objective Notion. When external actuality is altered by the activity of the objective Notion and its determination therewith sublated, by that very fact the merely phenomenal reality, the external determinability and worthlessness, are removed from that actuality and it is posited as being in and for itself. § 1779 In this process the general presupposition is sublated, namely the determination of the good as a merely subjective end limited in respect of content, the necessity of realising it by subjective activity, and this activity itself. In the result the mediation sublates itself; the result is an immediacy that is not the restoration of the presupposition, but rather its accomplished sublation. With this, the Idea of the Notion that is determined in and for itself is posited as being no longer merely in the active subject but as equally an immediate actuality; and conversely, this actuality is posited, as it is in cognition, as an objectivity possessing a true being. § 1780 The individuality of the subject with which the subject was burdened by its presupposition, has vanished along with the presupposition; hence the subject now exists as free, universal self−identity, for which the objectivity of the Notion is a given objectivity immediately to hand, no less truly than the subject knows itself as the Notion that is determined in and for itself. Accordingly in this result cognition is restored and united with the practical Idea; the actuality found as given is at the same time determined as the realised absolute end; but whereas in questing cognition this subjectivity appeared merely as an objective world without the subjectivity of the Notion, here it appears as an objective world whose inner ground and actual subsistence is the Notion. This is the absolute Idea. The Absolute Idea § 1781 The absolute Idea has turned out to be the identity of the theoretical and the practical Idea. Each of these by itself is still one−sided, possessing the Idea only as a sought for beyond and an unattained goal; each, therefore, is a synthesis of endeavour, and has, but equally has not, the Idea in it; each passes from one thought to the other without bringing the two together, and so remains fixed in their contradiction. The absolute Idea, as the rational Notion that in its reality meets only with itself, is by virtue of this immediacy of its objective identity, on the one hand the return to life; but it has no less sublated this form of its immediacy, Science of Logic The Absolute Idea 156 and contains within itself the highest degree of opposition. The Notion is not merely soul but free subjective Notion that is for itself and therefore possesses personality −− the practical, objective Notion determined in and for itself which, as person, is impenetrable atomic individuality, but explicitly universality and cognition, and in its other has its own objectivity for its object. All else is error, confusion, opinion, endeavour, caprice and transitoriness; the absolute Idea alone is being, imperishable life, self−knowing truth, and is all truth. § 1782 It is the sole subject matter and content of philosophy. Since it contains all determinations within it, and its essential nature is to return to itself through its self−determination or particularisation, it has various shapes, and the business of philosophy is to cognise it in these. Nature and spirit are in general different modes of presenting its existence, art and religion its different modes of apprehending itself and giving itself an adequate existence. Philosophy has the same content and the same end as art and religion; but it is the highest mode of apprehending the absolute idea, because its mode is the highest mode, the Notion. Hence it embraces those shapes of real and ideal finitude as well as of infinitude and cognition of these particular modes is now the further business of the particular philosophical sciences. § 1783 The logical aspect of the absolute Idea may also be called a mode of it; but whereas mode signifies a particular kind, a determinateness of form, the logical aspect, on the contrary, is the universal mode in which all particular modes are sublated and enfolded. The logical Idea os the Idea itself in its pure essence, the Idea enclosed in simple identity within its Notion prior to its immediate reflection in a form−determinateness. Hence logic exhibits the self−movement of the absolute Idea only as original word, which is an outwardising or utterance, but an utterance that in being has immediately vanished again as something outer; the Idea is, therefore, only in this self−determination of apprehending itself; it is in pure thought, in which difference is not yet otherness, but is and remains perfectly transparent to itself. Thus the logical Idea has itself as the infinite form for its content −− form which constitutes the opposite to content to this extent that the content is the form−determination withdrawn into itself and sublated in the identity in such a manner that this concrete identity stands opposed to the identity explicated as form; the content has the shape of an other and a datum as against the form which as such stands simply in relation, and its determinateness is at the same time posited as an illusory being. More exactly, the determination is its own completed totality, the pure Notion. Now the determinateness of the Idea and the entire course followed by this determinateness has constituted the subject matter of the science of logic, from which course the absolute Idea itself has issued into an existence of its own; but the nature of this existence has shown itself to be this, that determinateness does not have the shape of content, but exists wholly as form, and that accordingly the Idea is the absolutely universal Idea. Therefore what remains to be considered here is not a content as such, but the universal aspect of its form −− that is, the method. § 1784 Method may appear at first as the mere manner peculiar to the process of cognition, and as a matter of fact it has the nature of such. But the peculiar manner, as method, is not merely a modality of being determined in and for itself; it is a modality of cognition, and as such is posited as determined by the Notion and as form, in so far as the form is the soul of all objectivity and all otherwise determined content has its truth in the form alone. If the content again is assumed as given to the method and of a peculiar nature of its own, then in such a determination method, as with the logical element in general, is a merely external form. Against this however Science of Logic The Absolute Idea 157 we can appeal not only to the fundamental Notion of the science of logic; its entire course, in which all possible shapes of a given content and of objects came up for consideration, has demonstrated their transition and untruth; also that not merely was it impossible for a given object to be the foundation to which the absolute form stood in a merely external and contingent relationship but that, on the contrary, the absolute form has proved itself to be the absolute foundation and ultimate truth. From this course the method has emerged as the self−knowing Notion that has itself, as the absolute, both subjective and objective, for its subject matter, consequently as the pure correspondence of the Notion and its reality, as a concrete that is the Notion itself. § 1785 Accordingly, what is to be considered here as method is only the movement of the Notion itself, the nature of which movement has already been cognised; but first, there is now the added significance that the Notion is everything, and its movement is the universal absolute activity, the self−determining and self−realising movement. The method is therefore to be recognised as the unrestrictedly universal, internal and external mode; and as the absolutely infinite force, to which no object, presenting itself as something external, remote from and independent of reason, could offer resistance or be of a particular nature in opposition to it, or could not be penetrated by it. It is therefore soul and substance, and anything whatever is comprehended and known in its truth only when it is completely subjugated to the method; it is the method proper to every subject matter because its activity is the Notion. This is also the truer meaning if its universality; according to the universality of reflection it is regarded merely as the method for everything; but according to the universality of the Idea, it is both the manner peculiar to cognition, to the subjectively selfknowing Notion, and also the objective manner, or rather the substantiality, of things −− that is of Notions, in so far as they appear primarily to representation and reflection as others. It is therefore not only the highest force, or rather the sole and absolute force of reason, but also its supreme and sole urge to find and cognise itself by means of itself in everything. Here, secondly, is indicated the difference of the method from the Notion as such, the particular aspect of the method. The Notion, when it was considered by itself, appeared in its immediacy; the reflection, or the Notion that considered it, fell within our knowing. The method is this knowing itself, for which the Notion is not merely the subject matter, but knowing's own subjective act, the instrument and means of the cognising activity, distinguished from that activity, but only as the activity's own essentiality. In the cognition of enquiry, the method likewise occupies the position of an instrument, of a means standing on the subjective side by which this side relates itself to the object. In this syllogism the subject is one extreme and the object the other, and the former by means of its method unites with the latter, but in doing so it does not unite with itself. The extremes remain diverse because subject, method, and object are not posited as the one identical Notion; the syllogism is therefore still the formal syllogism; the premises in which the subject posits the form on its side as its method is an immediate determination, and therefore contains the determinations of form, as we have seen, of definition, division, and so forth, as facts found existing in the subject. In true cognition on the contrary, the method is not merely an aggregate of certain determinations, but the Notion that is determined in and for itself; and the Notion is the middle term only because it has equally the significance of the objective, and consequently in the conclusion the objective does not merely attain an external determinateness by means of the method, but is posited in its identity with the subjective Notion. § 1786 1. Thus what constitute the method are the determinations of the Notion itself and their relations, which we have now to consider in their significance as determinations of the method. In doing so we must first begin with the beginning. Of the beginning we have already spoken at the beginning of the Logic itself, and also above, when dealing with subjective cognition, and we have shown that, if it is not made arbitrarily and with a categorical unconsciousness, it may indeed seem to involve a number of difficulties but nevertheless is of Science of Logic The Absolute Idea 158 an extremely simple nature. Because it is the beginning, its content is an immediate, but an immediate that has the significance and form of abstract universality. Be it otherwise a content of being, or of essence, or of the Notion, it is as an immediate something assumed, found already in existence, assertorical. But first of all it is not an immediate of sensuous intuition or of representation, but of thinking, which on account of its immediacy may also be called a supersensuous inner intuition. The immediate of sensuous intuition is a manifold and an individual. But cognition is thinking by means of notions, and therefore its beginning also is only in the element of thought −− it is a simple and a universal. This form has already been discussed under definition. At the beginning of finite cognition universality is likewise recognised as an essential determination, but it is taken as a determination of thought and of Notion only in opposition to being. In point of fact this first universality is an immediate one, and for that reason has equally the significance of being; for being is precisely this abstract relation−to−self. Being requires no further derivation, as though it belonged to the abstract product of definition only because it is taken from sensuous intuition or elsewhere, and in so far as it is pointed out to us. This pointing out and derivation is a matter of mediation, which is more than a mere beginning, and is a mediation of a kind that does not belong to a comprehension by means of thinking, but is the elevation of ordinary thinking, of the empirical and ratiocinative consciousness, to the standpoint of thought. According to the current opposition of thought or concept and being it is regarded as an important truth that no being belongs as yet to the former, taken on its own, and that the latter has a ground of its own that is independent of thought. But the simple determination of being is in itself so meagre that, if only for that reason, there is no need to make much fuss about it; the universal is immediately itself this immediate, since as abstract it also is merely the abstract relation−to−self, which is being. As a matter of fact, the demand that being should be exhibited for us to see has a further, inner meaning involving more than this abstract determination; what is meant by it is in general the demand for the realisation of the Notion, which realisation does not lie in the beginning itself, but is rather the goal and the task of the entire further development of cognition. Further, since the content of the beginning is supposed to be justified and authenticated as something true or correct by its being pointed out in inner or outer perception, it is no longer the form of universality as such that is meant, but its determinateness, of which we shall need to speak presently. The authentication of the determinate content with which the beginning is made seems to lie behind it; but in fact it is to be considered as an advance, that is, if it belongs to philosophical cognition. § 1787 Hence the beginning has for the method no other determinateness than that of being simple and universal; this is itself the determinateness by reason of which it is deficient. Universality is the pure simple Notion, and the method, as consciousness of the Notion, knows that universality is only a moment and that in it the Notion is not yet determined in and for itself. But with this consciousness that would carry the beginning further only for the sake of the method, the method would be a formal affair, something posited in external reflection. Since however it is the objective immanent form, the immediate of the beginning must be in its own self deficient and endowed with the urge to carry itself further. But in the absolute method the universal has the value not of a mere abstraction but of the objective universal, that is, the universal that is in itself the concrete totality, though that totality is not yet posited, is not yet for itself. Even the abstract universal as such, considered in its Notion, that is in its truth, is not merely the simple, but as abstract is already posited as infected with a negation. For this reason too there is nothing, whether in actuality or in thought, that is as simple and as abstract as is commonly imagined. A simple thing of this kind is a mere presumption that has its ground solely in the unconsciousness of what is actually present. Above, that with which the beginning is made was determined as the immediate; the immediacy of the universal is the same thing that is here expressed as the in−itself that is without a being−for−self. Hence it may indeed be said that every beginning must be made with the absolute, just as all advance is merely the exposition of it, in so far as its in−itself is the Notion. But because the absolute is at first only in itself it equally is not the absolute nor the posited Notion, and also not the Idea; for what characterises these is precisely the fact that in them the in−itself is Science of Logic The Absolute Idea 159 only an abstract, one−sided moment. Hence the advance is not a kind of superfluity; this it would be if that with which the beginning is made were in truth already the absolute; the advance consists rather in the universal determining itself and being for itself the universal, that is, equally an individual and a subject. Only in its consummation is it the absolute. § 1788 It is to be recalled that the beginning, which is in itself a concrete totality, may as beginning also be free and its immediacy have the determination of an external existence; the germ of the living being and the subjective end in general have proved themselves to be such beginnings and therefore both are themselves urges. The non−spiritual and inanimate, on the contrary, are the Notion only as real possibility; cause is the highest stage in which the concrete Notion, as a beginning in the sphere of necessity has an immediate existence; but it is not yet a subject that maintains itself as such even in its actual realisation. The sun, for example, and in general all inanimate things, are determinate concrete existences in which real possibility remains an inner totality and the moments of the totality are not posited in subjective form in them and, in so far as they realise themselves, attain an existence by means of other corporeal individuals. § 1789 2. The concrete totality which makes the beginning contains as such within itself the beginning of the advance and development. As concrete, it is differentiated within itself: but by reason of its first immediacy the first differentiated determinations are in the first instance merely a diversity. The immediate, however, as self−related universality, as subject, is also the unity of these diverse determinations. This reflection is the first stage of the movement onwards −− the emergence of real difference, judgement, the process of determining in general. The essential point is that the absolute method finds and cognises the determination of the universal within the latter itself. The procedure of the finite cognition of the understanding here is to take up again, equally externally, what it has left out in its creation of the universal by a process of abstraction. The absolute method, on the contrary, does not behave like external reflection but takes the determinate element from its own subject matter, since it is itself that subject matter's immanent principle and soul. This is what Plato demanded of cognition, that it should consider things in and for themselves, that is, should consider them partly in their universality, but also that it should not stray away from them catching at circumstances, examples and comparisons, but should keep before it solely the things themselves and bring before consciousness what is immanent in them. § 1790 The method of absolute cognition is to this extent analytic. That it finds the further determination of its initial universal simply and solely in that universal, is the absolute objectivity of the Notion, of which objectivity the method is the certainty. But the method is no less synthetic, since its subject matter, determined immediately as a simple universal, by virtue of the determinateness which it possesses in its very immediacy and universality, exhibits itself as an other. This relation of differential elements which the subject matter thus is within itself, is however no longer the same thing as is meant by synthesis in finite cognition; the mere fact of the subject matter's no less analytic determination in general, that the relation is relation within the Notion, completely distinguishes it from the latter synthesis. § 1791 Science of Logic The Absolute Idea 160 This no less synthetic than analytic moment of judgement, by which the universal of the beginning of its own accord determines itself as the other of itself, is to be named the dialectical moment. Dialectic is one of those ancient sciences that have been most misunderstood in the metaphysics of the moderns, as well as by popular philosophy in general, ancient and modern alike. Diogenes Laertius says of Plato that, just as Thales was the founder of natural philosophy and Socrates of moral philosophy, so Plato was the founder of the third science pertaining to philosophy, namely, dialectic −− a service which the ancient world esteemed his highest, but which often remains quite overlooked by those who have most to say about him. Dialectic has often been regarded as an art, as though it rested on a subjective talent and did not belong to the objectivity of the Notion. The shape it takes and the result it reaches in Kantian philosophy have already been pointed out in the specific examples of the Kantian view of it. It must be regarded as a step of infinite importance that dialectic is once more recognised as necessary to reason, although the result to be drawn from it must be the opposite of that arrived at by Kant. § 1792 Besides the fact that dialectic is generally regarded as contingent, it usually takes the following more precise form. It is shown that there belongs to some subject matter or other, for example the world, motion, point, and so on, some determination or other, for example (taking the objects in the order named), finite in space or time, presence in this place, absolute negation of space; but further, that with equal necessity the opposite determination also belongs to the subject matter, for example, infinity in space and time, non−presence in this place, relation to space and so spatiality. The older Eleatic school directed its dialectic chiefly against motion. Plato frequently against the general ideas and notions of his time, especially those of the Sophists, but also against the pure categories and the determinations of reflection; the more cultivated scepticism of a later period extended it not only to the immediate so−called facts of consciousness and maxims of common life, but also to all the notions of science. § 1793 Now the conclusion drawn from dialectic of this kind is in general the contradiction and nullity of the assertion made. But this conclusion can be drawn in either of two senses either in the objective sense, that the subject matter which in such a manner contradicts itself cancels itself out and is null and void −− this was, for example, the conclusion of the Eleatics, according to which truth was denied, for example, to the world, to motion, to the point; or in the subjective sense, that cognition is defective. One way of understanding the latter sense of the conclusion is that it is only this dialectic that imposes on us the trick of an illusion. This is the common view of so−called sound common sense which takes its stand on the evidence of the senses and on customary conceptions and judgements. Sometimes it takes this dialectic lightly, as when Diogenes the cynic exposes the hollowness of the dialectic of motion by silently walking up and down;; but often it flies into a passion, seeing it in perhaps a piece of sheer foolery, or, when morally important objects are concerned, an outrage that tries to unsettle what is essentially established and teaches how to supply wickedness with grounds. This is the view expressed in the Socratic dialectic against that of the Sophists, and this is the indignation which, turned in the opposite direction, cost even Socrates his life. The vulgar refutation that opposes to thinking, as did Diogenes, sensuous consciousness and imagines that in the latter it possesses the truth, must be left to itself; but in so far as dialectic abrogates moral determinations, we must have confidence in reason that it will know how to restore them again, but restore them in their truth and in the consciousness of their right, though also of their limitations. Or again, the conclusion of subjective nullity may mean that it does not affect dialectic itself, but rather the cognition against which it is directed and in the view of scepticism and likewise of the Kantian philosophy, cognition in general. § 1794 Science of Logic The Absolute Idea 161 The fundamental prejudice in this matter is that dialectic has only a negative result, a point which will presently be more precisely defined. First of all as regards the above−mentioned form in which dialectic is usually presented, it is to be observed that according to that form the dialectic and its result affect the subject matter under consideration or else subjective cognition, and declare either the latter or the subject matter to be null and void, while on the other hand the determinations exhibited in the subject matter as in a third thing receive no attention and are presupposed as valid on their own account. It is an infinite merit of the Kantian Philosophy to have drawn attention to this uncritical procedure and by so doing to have given the impetus to the restoration of logic and dialectic in the sense of the examination of the determinations of thought in and for themselves. The subject matter kept apart from thinking and the Notion, is an image or even a name; it is in the determinations of thought and the Notion that it is what it is. Therefore these determinations are in fact the sole thing that matters; they are the true subject matter and content of reason, and anything else that one understands by subject matter and content in distinction from them as value only through them and in them. It must not therefore be considered the fault of a subject matter or of cognition that these determinations, through their constitution and an external connection, show themselves dialectical. On that assumption, the subject matter or the cognition is represented as a subject into which the determinations in the form of predicates, properties, self−subsistent universals, are introduced in such a manner that, fixed and correct as they are by themselves, they are brought into dialectical relationships and contradiction only by extraneous and contingent connection in and by a third thing. This kind of external and fixed subject of imagination and understanding and these abstract determinations, far from meriting the status of ultimates, of secure and permanent substrates, are rather to be regarded as themselves immediate, as just that kind of presupposed and initial immediate that, as was shown above, must in its own essential nature [in and for itself] submit to dialectic, because it is to be taken as in itself the Notion. Thus all the oppositions that are assumed as fixed, as for example finite and infinite, individual and universal, are not in contradiction through, say, an external connection; on the contrary, as an examination of their nature has shown, they are in and for themselves a transition; the synthesis and the subject in which they appear is the product of their Notion's own reflection. If a consideration that ignores the Notion stops short at their external relationship, isolates them and leaves them as fixed presuppositions, it is the Notion, on the contrary, that keeps them steadily in view, moves them as their soul and brings out their dialectic. § 1795 Now this is the very standpoint indicated above from which a universal first, considered in and for itself, shows itself to be the other of itself. Taken quite generally, this determination can be taken to mean that what is at first immediate now appears as mediated, related to an other, or that the universal appears as a particular. Hence the second term that has thereby come into being is the negative of the first, and if we anticipate the subsequent progress, the first negative. The immediate, from this negative side, has been extinguished in the other, but the other is essentially not the empty negative, the nothing, that is taken to be the usual result of dialectic; rather is it the other of the first, the negative of the immediate; it is therefore determined as the mediated −− contains in general the determination of the first within itself. Consequently the first is essentially preserved and retained even in the other. To hold fast to the positive in its negative, in the content of the presupposition, in the result, this is the most important feature in rational cognition; at the same time only the simplest reflection is needed to convince one of the absolute truth and necessity of this requirement and so far as examples of the proof of this are concerned, the whole of logic consists solely of such. § 1796 Science of Logic The Absolute Idea 162 Accordingly, what we now have before us is the mediated, which to begin with, or, if it is likewise taken immediately, is also a simple determination; for as the first has been extinguished in it, only the second is present. Now since the first also is contained in the second, and the latter is the truth of the former, this unity can be expressed as a proposition in which the immediate is put as subject, and the mediated as its predicate; for example, the finite, one is infinite, one is many, the individual is the universal. However, the inadequate form of such propositions is at once obvious. In treating of the judgement it has been shown that its form in general, and most of all the immediate form of the positive judgement, is incapable of holding within its grasp speculative determinations and truth. The direct supplement to it, the negative judgement, would at least have to be added as well. In the judgement the first, as subject, has the illusory show of a self−dependent subsistence, whereas it is sublated in its predicate as in its other; this negation is indeed contained in the content of the above propositions, but their positive form contradicts the content; consequently what is contained in them is not posited −− which would be precisely the purpose of employing a proposition. § 1797 The second determination, the negative or mediated, is at the same time also the mediating determination. It may be taken in the first instance as a simple determination, but in its truth it is a relation or relationship; for it is the negative, but the negative of the positive, and includes the positive within itself. It is therefore the other, but not the other of something to which it is indifferent −− in that case it would not be an other, nor a relation or relationship −− rather it is the other in its own self, the other of an other; therefore it includes its own other within it and is consequently as contradiction, the posited dialectic of itself. Because the first or the immediate is implicitly the Notion, and consequently is also only implicitly the negative, the dialectical moment with it consists in positing in it the difference that it implicitly contains. The second, on the contrary, is itself the determinate moment, the difference or relationship; therefore with it the dialectical moment consists in positing the unity that is contained in it. § 1798 If then the negative, the determinate, relationship, judgement, and all the determinations falling under this second moment do not at once appear on their own account as contradiction and as dialectical. this is solely the fault of a thinking that does not bring its thoughts together. For the material, the opposed determinations in one relation, is already posited and at hand for thought. But formal thinking makes identity its law, and allows the contradictory content before it to sink into the sphere of ordinary conception, into space and time, in which the contradictories are held asunder in juxtaposition and temporal succession and so come before consciousness without reciprocal contact. On this point, formal thinking lays down for its principle that contradiction is unthinkable: but as a matter of fact the thinking of contradiction is the essential moment of the Notion. Formal thinking does in fact think contradiction, only it at once looks away from it, and in saying that it is unthinkable it merely passes over from it into abstract negation. § 1799 Now the negativity just considered constitutes the turning point of the movement of the Notion. It is the simple point of the negative relation to self, the innermost source of all activity of all animate and spiritual self−movement, the dialectical soul that everything true possesses and through which alone it is true; for on this subjectivity alone rests the sublating of the opposition between the Notion and reality, and the unity that is truth. The second negative, the negative of the negative, at which we have arrived, is this sublating of the contradiction, but just as little as the contradiction is it an act of external reflection, but rather the innermost, most objective moment of life and spirit through which a subject, a person, a free being, exists. Science of Logic The Absolute Idea 163 § 1800 The relation of the negative to itself is to be regarded as the second premise of the whole syllogism. If the terms analytic and synthetic are employed as opposites, the first premise may be regarded as the analytic moment, for in it the immediate stands in immediate relationship to its other and therefore passes over, or rather has passed over, into it −− although this relation, as already remarked, is also synthetic, precisely because that into which it passes over is its other. The second premise here under consideration may be defined as synthetic, since it is the relation of the differentiated term as such to the term from which it is differentiated. Just as the first premise is the moment of universality and communication, so the second is determined by individuality, which in its relation to its other is primarily exclusive, for itself, and different. The negative appears as the mediating element, since it includes within it itself and the immediate whose negation it is. So far as these two determinations are taken in some relationship or other as externally related, the negative is only the formal mediating element; but as absolute negativity the negative moment of absolute mediation is the unity which is subjectivity and soul. § 1801 In this turning point of the method, the course of cognition at the same time returns into itself. As self−sublating contradiction this negativity is the restoration of the first immediacy, of simple universality; for the other of the other, the negative of the negative, is immediately the positive, the identical, the universal. If one insists on counting, this second immediate is, in the course of the method as a whole, the third term to the first immediate and the mediated. It is also, however, the third term to the first or formal negative and to absolute negativity or the second negative; now as the first negative is already the second term, the term reckoned as third can also be reckoned as fourth, and instead of a triplicity, the abstract form may be taken as a quadruplicity; in this way, the negative or the difference is counted as a duality. The third or fourth is in general the unity of the first and second moments, of the immediate and the mediated. That it is this unity, as also that the whole form of the method is a triplicity, is, it is true, merely the superficial external side of the mode of cognition; but to have demonstrated even this, and that too in a more specific application −− for it is well known that the abstract number form itself was advanced at quite an early period, but, in the absence of the Notion, without result −− must also be regarded as an infinite merit of the Kantian philosophy. § 1802 The syllogism, which is threefold, has always been recognised as the universal form of reason; but for one thing it counted generally for a quite external form that did not determine the nature of the content, and for another thing, since it progresses in the formal sense merely in the understanding's determination of identity, it lacks the essential dialectical moment of negativity; yet this moment enters into the triplicity of determinations because the third is the unity of the first two, and these, since they are different, can be in the unity only as sublated determinations. Formalism has, it is true, also taken possession of triplicity and adhered to its empty schema; the shallow ineptitude and barrenness of modern philosophic construction so−called, that consists in nothing but fastening this schema on to everything without Notion and immanent determination and employing it for an external arrangement, has made the said form tedious and given it a bad name. Yet the triteness of this use of it cannot detract from its inner worth and we must always value highly the discovery of the shape of the rational, even though it was at first uncomprehended. § 1803 Now more precisely the third is the immediate, but the immediate resulting from sublation of mediation, the simple resulting from sublation of difference, the positive resulting from sublation of the negative, the Notion that has realised itself by means of its otherness and by the sublation of this reality has become united with itself, and has restored its absolute reality, its simple relation to itself. This result is therefore the truth. It is Science of Logic The Absolute Idea 164 equally immediacy and mediation; but such forms of judgement as: the third is immediacy and mediation, or it is the unity of them, are not capable of grasping it; for it is not a quiescent third, but, precisely as this unity, is self−mediating movement and activity. As that with which we began was the universal, so the result is the individual, the concrete, the subject; what the former is in itself the latter is now equally for itself, the universal is posited in the subject. The first two moments of the triplicity are abstract, untrue moments which for that very reason are dialectical, and through this their negativity make themselves into the subject. The Notion itself is for us, in the first instance, alike the universal that is in itself, and the negative that is for itself, and also the third, that which is both in and for itself, the universal that runs through all the moments of he syllogism, but the third is the conclusion, in which the Notion through its negativity is mediated with itself and thereby posited for itself as the universal and the identity of its moments. § 1804 Now this result, as the whole that has withdrawn into and is identical with itself, h