OF MEDIATION.
The comprehension of mediation lies at the basis of the distinction of
sensuous knowing from the _understanding_. The transition from
_intuition_ to _abstract thinking_ is made at first unconsciously, and
for this reason the one who has begun the process of mediation handles
the “mental spectres” created by abstraction with the utmost naïveté,
assuming for them absolute validity in the world at large. It is only
the speculative insight that gains mastery over such abstractions, and
sees the Truth. If this view could be unfolded in a popular form, it
would afford a series of solvents for the thinker which are applicable
to a great variety of difficult problems. For it must be remembered that
the abstract categories of the understanding—such as _essence and
phenomenon_, _cause and effect_, _substance and attribute_, _force and
manifestation_, _matter and form_, and the like, give rise to a series
of _antinomies_, or contradictory propositions, when applied to the
Totality. From the standpoint of mediation—that of simple reflection,
“common sense” so called—these antinomies seem utterly insoluble. The
reason of this is found in the fact that “common sense” places implicit
faith in these categories (just mentioned), and never rises to the
investigation of them by themselves. To consider the validity of these
categories by themselves is called a _transcendental_ procedure, for it
passes beyond the ordinary thinking which uses them without distrust.
The transcendental investigation shows that the insolubility attributed
to these antinomies arises from the mistake of the thinker, who supposes
the categories he employs to be exhaustive. Speculative insight begins
with the perception that they are not exhaustive; that they have by a
species of enchantment cast a spell upon the mind, under which every
thing seems dual, and the weary seeker after Truth wanders through a
realm of abstractions each of which assumes the form of a solid
reality—now a giant, and now a dwarf, and now an impassible river,
impenetrable forest, or thick castle wall defended by dragons.
The following questions will illustrate the character of the problems
here described:
“Why deal with abstractions—why not hold fast by the concrete reality?”
(This position combats mediation under its form of _abstraction_.)
“Can we not know _immediately_ by intuition those objects that
philosophy strives in vain to comprehend? in short, are not God, Freedom
and Immortality certain to us and yet indemonstrable?”
(This position combats mediation as involved in a _system_ of
Philosophy.)
These questions arise only in the mind that has already gone beyond the
doctrine that it attempts to defend, and hence a self refutation is
easily drawn out of the source from whence they originate.
ABSTRACTION.
(_a_) It will be readily granted that all knowing involves
_distinction_. We must distinguish one object from another.
(_b_) But the process of distinguishing is a process that involves
abstraction. For in separating this object from that, I contrast its
marks, properties, _attributes_, with those of the other. In seizing
upon one characteristic I must isolate it from all others, and this is
nothing more nor less than abstraction.
(_c_) Therefore it is absurd to speak of knowing without abstraction,
for this enters into the simplest act of perception.
(_d_) Nor is this a subjective defect, an “impotency of our mental
structure,” as some would be ready to exclaim at this point. For it is
just as evident that _things themselves_ obtain reality only through
these very characteristics. One thing preserves its distinctness from
another by means of its various _determinations_. Without these
determinations all would collapse into _one_, nay, even “_one_” would
vanish, for distinction being completely gone, _one-ness_ is not
possible. This is the “_Principle of Indiscernibles_” enunciated by
Leibnitz. Thus distinction is as necessary objectively as subjectively.
The thing _abstracts_ in order to be _real_. It defends itself against
what lies without it by specializing itself into single properties, and
thus becoming in each a mere abstraction.
(_e_) Moreover, besides this prevalence of abstraction in the
_theoretic_ field, it is still more remarkable in the _practical_ world.
The business man decries abstractions. He does not know that every act
of the will is an abstraction, and that it is also preceded by an
abstraction. When he exhorts you to “leave off abstractions and deal
with concrete realities,” he does this: (1.) he regards you as he thinks
you are; (2.) he conceives you as different, i. e. as a _practical_ man;
(3.) he exhorts you to change from your real state to the possible one
which he conceives of (through the process of abstraction). The simplest
act with design—that of going to dinner, for example—involves
abstraction. If I raise my arm on purpose, I first abstract from its
real position, and think it under another condition.
(_f_) But the chief point in all this is to mark how the mind frees
itself from the untruth of abstraction. For it must be allowed that all
abstractions are false. The isolation of that which is not sufficient
for its own existence, (though as we have seen, a necessary constituent
of the process of _knowing_ and of _existing_,) sets up an untruth as
existent. Therefore the mind thinks this isolation only as a moment of a
_negative unity_, (i. e. as an element of a process). This leads us to
the consideration of mediation in the more general form, involved by the
second question.
IMMEDIATE KNOWING.
(_a_) _Definition._—“Immediate” is a predicate applied to what is
directly through itself. The immediateness of anything is the phase that
first presents itself. It is the undeveloped—an _oak_ taken immediately
is an _acorn_; man taken immediately is a child at birth.
(_b_) _Definition._—“Mediation” signifies the process of realization. A
_mediate_ or _mediated_ somewhat is what it is through another, or
through a process.
(_c_) _Principle._—Any concrete somewhat exists through its relations to
all else in the universe; hence all concrete somewhats are _mediated_.
“If a grain of sand were destroyed the universe would collapse.”
(_d_) _Principle._—An absolutely _immediate_ somewhat would be a pure
nothing, for the reason that no determination could belong to it, (for
determination is negative, and hence mediation). Hence all immediateness
must be phenomenal, or the result of abstraction from the concrete
whole, and this, of course, exhibits the contradiction of an immediate
which is mediated (a “_result_.”)
(_e_) The solution of this contradiction is found in
“self-determination,” (as we have seen in former chapters). The
self-determined is a mediated; it is _through the process_ of
determination; but is likewise an _immediate_, for it is its own
mediation, and hence it is the beginning and end—_it begins with its
result, and ends in its beginning_, and thus it is a circular process.
This is the great _aperçu_ of all speculative philosophy.
(_f_) _Definition._—Truth is the form of the Total, or that which
actually exists.
(_g_) Hence a knowing of Truth must be a knowing of the self-determined,
which is both immediate and mediate. This is a process or _system_.
Therefore the knowing of it cannot be simply _immediate_, but must be in
the form of a system. Thus the so-called “immediate intuition” is not a
knowing of truth unless inconsistent with what it professes.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF BAADER.
[The following letter from Dr. Franz Hoffmann to the St. Louis
Philosophical Society has been handed us for publication. It gives
us pleasure to lay before our readers so able a presentation of the
claims of Baader, and we trust that some of our countrymen will be
led by it to investigate the original sources herein referred to.
We are requested to correct a misstatement that occurs in the first
paragraph regarding the objects of the Philosophical Society. It was
not founded for the special purpose of “studying German Philosophy
from Kant to Hegel,” although it has many members who are occupied
chiefly in that field. The Society includes among its members
advocates of widely differing systems, all, however, working in the
spirit of the Preamble to the Constitution, which says: “The object
of this Society is to encourage the study and development of
Speculative Philosophy; to foster an application of its results to
Art, Science, and Religion; and to establish a philosophical basis
for the professions of Law, Medicine, Divinity, Politics, Education,
Art, and Literature.” We are indebted to Dr. A. Strothotte for the
translation of the letter.—EDITOR.]
WÜRZBURG, Dec. 28, 1866.
_Mr. President_: In the first number of Vol. XLIX of the “_Zeitschrift
für Philosophie_,” published at Halle, in Prussia, edited by Fichte,
Ulrici and Wirth, notice is taken of a philosophical society, organized
at St. Louis, with the object of pursuing the study of German philosophy
from Kant to Hegel.
This fact promises a correlation of philosophical movements between
North America and Germany which is of great importance. I presume,
however, that you have already been led, or that you will be led, to go
back beyond Kant to the first traces of German philosophy, and proceed
from Hegel to the present time.
Now, although a thorough and comprehensive view of Hegel’s philosophy is
in the first place to be recommended, yet the other directions in the
movement of thought must not be lost sight of.
In the Berlin organ of the Philosophical Society of the Hegelians—_Der
Gedanke_—edited by Michelet, may be found, as you perhaps know, an index
of the works of Hegel’s school, by Rosenkranz, whereas on the other hand
the rich literature of the anti-Hegelian writers is nowhere met with in
any degree of completeness. Many of them, however, are noticed in
Fichte’s journal, and in the more recent works on the history of
philosophy, particularly in those of Erdmann, and still more in those of
Ueberweg.
Among the prominent movements in philosophical thinking, during and
after the time of Hegel, the profound utterances of a great and genial
teacher, Franz Baader, reach a degree of prominence, even higher than is
admitted by Erdmann and Ueberweg. This may be readily perceived by
referring to the dissertation on Franz Baader, by Carl Philipp Fischer,
of Erlangen, and still more by having recourse to Hamberger, Lutterbeck,
and to my own writings.
* * * * *
I take the liberty of recommending to you and to the members of the
Philosophical Society of St. Louis, the study of the works of a
philosopher who certainly will have a great future, although his
doctrines in the progress of time may undergo modifications, reforms and
further developments. If Hegel had lived longer, the influence of Baader
upon him would have been greater yet than became visible during his last
years. He has thrown Schelling out of his pantheism, and pressed him
towards a semi-pantheism, or towards a deeper theism. The influence of
Baader on the philosophers after Hegel—J. H. Fichte, Weisse, Sempler, C.
Ph. Fischer and others—is much greater than is commonly admitted.
Whether they agree to it or not, still it is a fact that Baader is the
central constellation of the movement of the German spirit, from
pantheism to a deeper ideal-realistic theism. Such a genius, whatever
position may be taken with regard to him, cannot be left unnoticed,
without running the risk of being left behind the times. I ask nothing
for Baader, but to follow the maxim—“Try all and keep the best.” I
regret that so great a distance prevents me from sending your honorable
Society some of my explanatory writings, which are admitted to be clear
and thorough. It may suffice if I add a copy of my prospectus; and let
me here remark, that a collection of my writings, in four large volumes,
will be published by Deichert, in Erlangen. The first volume, perhaps,
will be ready at Easter, 1867.
Erdmann, in his elements of the history of philosophy, has treated of
the doctrines of Baader, too briefly it is true, but with more justice
than he has used in his former work on the history of modern philosophy,
and he bears witness that his esteem of Baader increases more and more.
But he evidently assigns to him a wrong position, by considering Oken
and Baader as extremes, and Hegel as the mean, while Oken and Hegel are
the extremes, and Baader the mean. The most important phenomenon in the
school of Hegel is the _Idee der Wissenschaft_ of Rosenkranz, (_Logik
und Metaphysik_,) which represents Hegel in a sense not far distant from
the standpoint of Baader. * * * * * * * C. H. Fischer’s Characteristics
of Baader’s Theosophy speaks with high favor of him, but still I have to
take several exceptions. According to my opinion, all the authors by him
referred to, as Schelling, Hegel, Schleiermacher, Dauber and Baader, we
must call theosophers—or call none of them so, but _philosophers_, in
order to avoid misunderstanding. Then I do not see how Schelling can be
called the “most genial philosopher of modern times,” and yet Baader the
more, yea, the _most_ profound. Finally, a want of system must be
admitted, but too great importance is attributed to this. If, however,
systematism could decide here, then not Schelling but Hegel is the
greatest philosopher of modern times. At all events Fischer’s Memorial
at the Centennial Birthday of Baader is significant, and is written with
great spirit and warmth. The most important work of C. Ph. Fischer,
bearing on this subject, is his elements of the system of philosophy, or
_Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences_. This is one of the most
important of the works of the philosophers after Hegel and Baader. The
Athenäum of Froschhammer, (Journal for Philosophy), appeared only for
three years. It had to cease its publication, because on the one side
the Ultramontanist party agitated against it, and on the other side it
met with insufficient support. Its reissue would be desirable, but just
now not practicable, for want of interest on the part of the public,
although it could bear comparison with any other philosophical journal.
Here let me say, that from Baader there proceeded a strong impulse
toward the revival of the study of the long-forgotten spiritual
treasures of the mystics and theosophers of the middle ages, and of the
time of the Reformation. From this impulse monographs have made their
appearance about Scotus Erigena, Albertus Magnus—at least biographies of
them—Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart, Tauler, Nicholas Cusanus, Weigel,
J. Böhme, Oettinger, etc. The most important of these I deem to be
_Scotus Erigena_, by Joh. Huber, Christlieb and Kaulich; _Meister
Eckhart_, by Bach, and _J. Böhme_, by J. Hamberger. Bach on _Eckhart_ is
especially instructive with respect to the connection between modern
philosophy and the theosophy of Eckhart and his school, to which also
Nicholas Cusanus belonged.
I presume that it will yet be discovered that Copernicus was at least
acquainted with Nicholas Cusanus, if he did not even sympathize with his
philosophy. The director of the observatory at Krakau, Kerlinski, is at
present preparing a monograph on Copernicus, which will probably throw
light on this subject. Prowe’s pamphlet on Copernicus, which I have
noticed in Glaser’s journal, refers to the investigations of Kerlinski,
who has recently published a beautiful edition of the works of
Copernicus. As in the early ages, first in the Pythagorean school, they
approached the true doctrine of the Universe, so in the middle ages it
appears in the school of Eckhart, for in a certain sense, and with some
restriction, Nicholas Cusanus was the precursor of Copernicus.
I beg you, my dear sir, to communicate this letter to your honorable
Society: should you see fit to publish it in a journal, you are at
liberty to do so.
I remain, Sir, with great respect,
Truly, yours,
DR. FRANZ HOFFMANN,
_Prof. of Philos. at the University of Würzburg_.
IN THE QUARRY.
By A. C. B.
Impatient, stung with pain, and long delay,
I chid the rough-hewn stone that round me lay;
I said—“What shelter art thou from the heat?
What rest art thou for tired and way-worn feet?
What beauty hast thou for the longing eye?
Thou nothing hast my need to satisfy!”
And then the patient stone fit answer made—
“Most true I am no roof with welcome shade;
I am no house for rest, or full delight
Of sculptured beauty for the weary sight;
Yet am I still, material for all;
Use me as such—I answer to thy call.
Nay, tread me only under climbing feet,
So serve I thee, my destiny complete;
Mount by me into purer, freer air,
And find the roof that archeth everywhere;
So what but failure seems, shall build success;
For all, as possible, thou dost possess.”
Who by the Universal squares his life,
Sees but success in all its finite strife;
In all that is, his truth-enlightened eyes
Detect the May-be through its thin disguise;
And in the Absolute’s unclouded sun,
To him the two already are the one.
THE JOURNAL OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY.
Vol. I. 1867. No. 4.
INTRODUCTION TO THE OUTLINES OF A SYSTEM OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY;
OR,
ON THE IDEA OF SPECULATIVE PHYSICS AND THE INTERNAL ORGANIZATION OF A
SYSTEM OF THIS SCIENCE.
1799.
[Translated from the German of SCHELLING, by TOM DAVIDSON.]
I.
WHAT WE CALL NATURAL PHILOSOPHY IS A NECESSARY SCIENCE IN THE SYSTEM OF
KNOWING.
The Intelligence is productive in two modes—that is, either blindly and
unconsciously, or freely and consciously;—unconsciously productive in
external intuition, consciously in the creation of an ideal world.
Philosophy removes this distinction by assuming the unconscious activity
as originally identical, and, as it were, sprung from the same root with
the conscious; this identity is by it _directly_ proved in the case of
an activity at once clearly conscious and unconscious, which manifests
itself in the productions of genius, _indirectly_, outside of
consciousness, in the products of _Nature_, so far as in them all, the
most complete fusion of the Ideal with the Real is perceived.
Since philosophy assumes the unconscious, or, as it may likewise be
termed, the real activity as identical with the conscious or ideal, its
tendency will originally be to bring back everywhere the real to the
ideal—a process which gives birth to what is called Transcendental
Philosophy. The regularity displayed in all the movements of Nature—for
example, the sublime geometry which is exercised in the motions of the
heavenly bodies—is not explained by saying that Nature is the most
perfect geometry; but conversely, by saying that the most perfect
geometry is what produces in Nature;—a mode of explanation whereby the
Real itself is transported into the ideal world, and those motions are
changed into intuitions, which take place only in ourselves, and to
which nothing outside of us corresponds. Again, the fact that Nature,
wherever it is left to itself, in every transition from a fluid to a
solid state, produces, of its own accord, as it were, regular
forms—which regularity, in the higher species of crystallization,
namely, the organic, seems to become purpose even; or the fact that in
the animal kingdom—that product of the blind forces of Nature—we see
actions arise which are equal in regularity to those that take place
with consciousness, and even external works of art, perfect in their
kind;—all this is not explained by saying that it is an unconscious
productivity, though in its origin akin to the conscious, whose mere
reflex we see in Nature, and which, from the stand-point of the natural
view, must appear as one and the same blind tendency, which exerts its
influence from crystallization upwards to the highest point of organic
formation (in which, on one side, through the art-tendency, it returns
again to mere crystallization) only acting upon different planes.
According to this view, inasmuch as Nature is only the visible organism
of our understanding, Nature _can_ produce nothing but what shows
regularity and design, and Nature is _compelled_ to produce that. But if
Nature can produce only the regular, and produces it from necessity, it
follows that the origin of such regular and design-evincing products
must again be capable of being proved necessary in Nature, regarded as
self-existent and real, and in the relation of its forces;—_that
therefore, conversely, the Ideal must arise out of the Real, and admit
of explanation from it_.
If, now, it is the task of Transcendental Philosophy to subordinate the
Real to the Ideal, it is, on the other hand, the task of Natural
Philosophy to explain the Ideal by the Real. The two sciences are
therefore but one science, whose two problems are distinguished by the
opposite directions in which they move; moreover, as the two directions
are not only equally possible, but equally necessary, the same necessity
attaches to both in the system of knowing.
II.
SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.
Natural Philosophy, as the opposite of Transcendental Philosophy, is
distinguished from the latter chiefly by the fact that it posits Nature
(not, indeed, in so far as it is a product, but in so far as it is at
once productive and product) as the self-existent; whence it may be most
briefly designated as the Spinozism of Physics. It follows naturally
from this that there is no place in this science for idealistic methods
of explanation, such as Transcendental Philosophy is fitted to supply,
from the circumstance that for it Nature is nothing more than the organ
of self-consciousness, and everything in Nature is necessary merely
because it is only through the medium of such a Nature that
self-consciousness can take place; this mode of explanation, however, is
as meaningless in the case of physics, and of our science which occupies
the same stand-point with it, as were the old teleological modes of
explanation, and the introduction of a universal reference to final
causes into the thereby metamorphosed science of Nature. For every
idealistic mode of explanation, dragged out of its own proper sphere and
applied to the explanation of Nature, degenerates into the most
adventurous nonsense, examples of which are well known. The first maxim
of all true natural science, viz., to explain everything by the forces
of Nature, is therefore accepted in its widest extent in our science,
and even extended to that region, at the limit of which all
interpretation of Nature has hitherto been accustomed to stop short; for
example, to those organic phenomena which seem to pre-suppose an analogy
with reason. For, granted that in the actions of animals there really is
something which pre-supposes such analogy, on the principle of realism,
nothing further would follow than that what we call reason is a mere
play of higher and necessarily unknown natural forces. For, inasmuch as
all thinking is at last reducible to a producing and reproducing, there
is nothing impossible in the thought that the same activity by which
Nature reproduces itself anew in each successive phase, is reproductive
in thought through the medium of the organism (very much in the same
manner in which, through the action and play of light, Nature, which
exists independently of it, is created immaterial, and, as it were, for
a second time), in which circumstance it is natural that what forms the
limit of our intuitive faculty, no longer falls within the sphere of our
intuition itself.
III.
NATURAL PHILOSOPHY IS SPECULATIVE PHYSICS.
Our science, as far as we have gone, is thoroughly and completely
realistic; it is therefore nothing other than Physics, it is only
_speculative_ Physics; in its tendency it is exactly what the systems of
the ancient physicists were, and what, in more recent times, the system
of the restorer of Epicurean philosophy is, viz., Lesage’s Mechanical
Physics, by which the speculative spirit in physics, after a long
scientific sleep, has again, for the first time, been awakened. It
cannot be shown in detail here (for the proof itself falls within the
sphere of our science), that on the mechanical or atomistic basis which
has been adopted by Lesage and his most successful predecessors, the
idea of speculative physics is incapable of realization. For, inasmuch
as the first problem of this science, that of inquiring into the
_absolute_ cause of motion (without which Nature is not in itself a
finished whole), is absolutely incapable of a mechanical solution,
seeing that mechanically motion results only from motion _ad infinitum_,
there remains for the real construction of speculative physics only one
way open, viz., the dynamic, which lays down that motion arises not only
from motion, but even from rest; that, therefore, there is motion in the
rest of Nature, and that all mechanical motion is the merely secondary
and derivative motion of that which is solely primitive and original,
and which wells forth from the very first factors in the construction of
a nature generally (the fundamental forces).
In hereby making clear the points of difference between our undertaking
and all those of a similar nature that have hitherto been attempted, we
have at the same time shown the difference between speculative physics
and so-called empirical physics; a difference which in the main may be
reduced to this, that the former occupies itself solely and entirely
with the original causes of motion in nature, that is, solely with the
dynamical phenomena; the latter, on the contrary, inasmuch as it never
reaches a final source of motion in nature, deals only with the
secondary motions, and even with the original ones only as mechanical
(and therefore likewise capable of mathematical construction). The
former, in fact, aims generally at the inner spring-work and what is
_non-objective_ in Nature; the latter, on the contrary, only at the
_surface_ of Nature, and what is objective, and, so to speak, _outside_
in it.
IV.
ON THE POSSIBILITY OF SPECULATIVE PHYSICS.
Inasmuch as our inquiry is directed not so much upon the phenomena of
Nature as upon their final grounds, and our business is not so much to
deduce the latter from the former as the former from the latter, our
task is simply this: to erect a science of Nature in the strictest sense
of the term; and in order to find out whether speculative physics are
possible, we must know what belongs to the possibility of a doctrine of
Nature viewed as science.
(_a_) The idea of knowing is here taken in its strictest sense, and then
it is easy to see that, in this acceptation of the term, we can be said
to know objects only when they are such that we see the principles of
their possibility, for without this insight my whole knowledge of an
object, e. g. of a machine, with whose construction I am unacquainted,
is a mere seeing, that is, a mere conviction of its existence, whereas
the inventor of the machine has the most perfect knowledge of it,
because he is, as it were, the soul of the work, and because it
preëxisted in his head before he exhibited it as a reality.
Now, it would certainly be impossible to obtain a glance into the
internal construction of Nature, if an invasion of Nature were not
possible through freedom. It is true that Nature acts openly and freely;
its acts however are never isolated, but performed under a concurrence
of a host of causes, which must first be excluded if we are to obtain a
pure result. Nature must therefore be compelled to act under certain
definite conditions, which either do not exist in it at all, or else
exist only as modified by others.—Such an invasion of Nature we call an
experiment. Every experiment is a question put to Nature, to which she
is compelled to give a reply. But every question contains an implicit _à
priori_ judgment; every experiment that is an experiment, is a prophecy;
experimenting itself is a production of phenomena. The first step,
therefore, towards science, at least in the domain of physics, is taken
when we ourselves begin to produce the objects of that science.
(_b_) We _know_ only the self-produced; knowing, therefore, in the
_strictest_ acceptation of the term, is a _pure_ knowing _à priori_.
Construction by means of experiment, is, after all, an absolute
self-production of the phenomena. There is no question but that much in
the science of Nature may be known comparatively _à priori_; as, for
example, in the theory of the phenomena of electricity, magnetism, and
even light. There is such a simple law recurring in every phenomenon
that the results of every experiment may be told beforehand; here my
knowing follows immediately from a known law, without the intervention
of any particular experience. But whence then does the law itself come
to me? The assertion is, that all phenomena are correlated in one
absolute and necessary law, from which they can all be deduced; in
short, that in natural science all that we know, we know absolutely _à
priori_. Now, that experiment never leads to such a knowing, is plainly
manifest, from the fact that it can never get beyond the forces of
Nature, of which itself makes use as means.
As the final causes of natural phenomena are themselves not phenomenal,
we must either give up all attempt ever to arrive at a knowledge of
them, or else we must altogether put them into Nature, endow Nature with
them. But now, that which we put into Nature has no other value than
that of a pre-supposition (hypothesis), and the science founded thereon
must be equally hypothetical with the principle itself. This it would be
possible to avoid only in one case, viz., if that pre-supposition itself
were involuntary, and as necessary as Nature itself. Assuming, for
example, what must be assumed, that the sum of phenomena is not a mere
world, but of necessity a Nature—that is, that this whole is not merely
a product, but at the same time productive, it follows that in this
whole we can never arrive at absolute identity, inasmuch as this would
bring about an absolute transition of Nature, in as far as it is
productive, into Nature as product, that is, it would produce absolute
rest; such wavering of Nature, therefore, between productivity and
product, will, of necessity, appear as a universal duplicity of
principles, whereby Nature is maintained in continual activity, and
prevented from exhausting itself in its product; and universal duality
as the principle of explanation of Nature will be as necessary as the
idea of Nature itself.
This absolute hypothesis must carry its necessity within itself, but it
must, besides this, be brought to empiric proof; for, inasmuch as all
the phenomena of Nature cannot be deduced from this hypothesis as long
as there is in the whole system of Nature a single phenomenon which is
not necessary according to that principle, or which contradicts it, the
hypothesis is thereby at once shown to be false, and from that moment
ceases to have validity as an hypothesis.
By this deduction of all natural phenomena from an absolute hypothesis,
our knowing is changed into a construction of Nature itself, that is,
into a science of Nature _à priori_. If, therefore, such deduction
itself is possible, a thing which can be proved only by the fact, then
also a doctrine of Nature is possible as a science of Nature; a system
of purely speculative physics is possible, which was the point to be
proved.
_Remark._—There would be no necessity for this remark, if the confusion
which still prevails in regard to ideas perspicuous enough in themselves
did not render some explanation with regard to them requisite.
The assertion that natural science must be able to deduce all its
principles _à priori_, is in a measure understood to mean that natural
science must dispense with all experience, and, without any intervention
of experience, be able to spin all its principles out of itself—an
affirmation so absurd that the very objections to it deserve pity. _Not
only do we know this or that through experience, but we originally know
nothing at all except through experience, and by means of experience_,
and in this sense the whole of our knowledge consists of the data of
experience. These data become _à priori_ principles when we become
conscious of them as necessary, and thus every datum, be its import what
it may, may be raised to that dignity, inasmuch as the distinction
between _à priori_ and _à posteriori_ data is not at all, as many people
may have imagined, one originally cleaving to the data themselves, but
is a distinction made solely _with respect to our knowing_, and the
_kind_ of our knowledge of these data, so that every datum which is
merely historical for me—i. e. a datum of experience—becomes,
notwithstanding, an _à priori_ principle as soon as I arrive, whether
directly or indirectly, at insight into its internal necessity. Now,
however, it must in all cases be possible to recognize every natural
phenomenon as absolutely necessary; for, if there is no chance in nature
at all, there can likewise be no original phenomenon of Nature
fortuitous; on the contrary, for the very reason that Nature is a
system, there must be a necessary connection for everything that happens
or comes to pass in it, in some principle embracing the whole of Nature.
Insight into this internal necessity of all natural phenomena becomes,
of course, still more complete, as soon as we reflect that there is no
real system which is not, at the same time, an organic whole. For if, in
an organic whole, all things mutually bear and support each other, then
this organization must have existed as a whole previous to its parts—the
whole could not have arisen from the parts, but the parts must have
arisen out of the whole. _It is not, therefore_, WE KNOW _Nature, but
Nature_ IS, _à priori_, that is, everything individual in it is
predetermined by the whole or by the idea of a Nature generally. But if
Nature _is_ _à priori_, then it must be possible to _recognize_ it _as_
something that is _à priori_, and this is really the meaning of our
affirmation.
Such a science, like every other, does not deal with the hypothetical,
or the merely probable, but depends upon the evident and the certain.
Now, we may indeed be quite certain that every natural phenomenon,
through whatever number of intermediate links, stands in connection with
the last conditions of a Nature; the intermediate links themselves,
however, may be unknown to us, and still lying hidden in the depths of
Nature. To find out these links is the work of experimental research.
Speculative physics have nothing to do but to show the need of these
intermediate links;[18] but as every new discovery throws us back upon a
new ignorance, and while one knot is being loosed a new one is being
tied, it is conceivable that the complete discovery of all the
intermediate links in the chain of Nature, and therefore also our
science itself, is an infinite task. Nothing, however, has more impeded
the infinite progress of this science than the arbitrariness of the
fictions by which the want of profound insight was so long doomed to be
concealed. This fragmentary nature of our knowledge becomes apparent
only when we separate what is merely hypothetical from the pure out-come
of science, and thereupon set out to collect the fragments of the great
whole of Nature again into a system. It is, therefore, conceivable that
speculative physics (the soul of real experiment) has, in all time, been
the mother of all great discoveries in Nature.
V.
OF A SYSTEM OF SPECULATIVE PHYSICS GENERALLY.
Hitherto the idea of speculative physics has been deduced and developed;
it is another business to show how this idea must be realized and
actually carried out.
The author, for this purpose, would at once refer to his Outlines of a
System of Natural Philosophy, if he had not reason to suspect that many
even of those who might consider those Outlines worthy of their
attention, would come to it with certain preconceived ideas, which he
has not presupposed, and which he does not desire to have pre-supposed.
The causes which may render an insight into the tendency of those
Outlines difficult, are (exclusive of defects of style and arrangement)
mainly, the following:
1. That many persons, misled perhaps by the word _Natural Philosophy_,
expect to find transcendental deductions from natural phenomena, such
as, in different fragments, exist elsewhere, and will regard natural
philosophy generally as a part of transcendental philosophy, whereas it
forms a science altogether peculiar, altogether different from, and
independent of, every other.
2. That the notions of dynamical physics hitherto diffused, are very
different from, and partially at variance with, those which the author
lays down. I do not speak of the modes of representation which several
persons, whose business is really mere experiment, have figured to
themselves in this connection; for example, where they suppose it to be
a dynamical explanation, when they reject a galvanic fluid, and accept
instead of it certain vibrations in the metals; for these persons, as
soon as they observe that they have understood nothing of the matter,
will revert, of their own accord, to their previous representations,
which were made for them. I speak of the modes of representation which
have been put into philosophic heads by Kant, and which may be mainly
reduced to this: that we see in matter nothing but the occupation of
space in definite degrees, in all difference of matter, therefore, only
mere difference of occupation of space (i. e. density,) in all dynamic
(qualitative) changes, only mere changes in the relation of the
repelling and attracting forces. Now, according to this mode of
representation, all the phenomena of Nature are looked at only on their
lowest plane, and the dynamical physics of these philosophers begin
precisely at the point where they ought properly to leave off. It is
indeed certain that the last result of every dynamical process is a
changed degree of occupation of space—that is, a changed density;
inasmuch, now, as the dynamical process of Nature is one, and the
individual dynamical processes are only shreds of the one fundamental
process—even magnetic and electric phenomena, viewed from this
stand-point, will be, not actions of particular materials, but changes
in the constitution of matter itself; and as this depends upon the
mutual action of the fundamental forces, at last, changes in the
relation of the fundamental forces themselves. We do not indeed deny
that these phenomena at the extreme limit of their manifestation are
changes in the relation of the principles themselves; we only deny that
these changes are nothing more; on the contrary, we are convinced that
this so-called dynamical principle is too superficial and defective a
basis of explanation for all Nature’s phenomena, to reach the real depth
and manifoldness of natural phenomena, inasmuch as by means of it, in
point of fact, no qualitative change of matter _as_ such is
constructible (for change of density is only the external phenomenon of
a higher change). To adduce proof of this assertion is not incumbent
upon us, till, from the opposite side, that principle of explanation is
shown by actual fact to exhaust Nature, and the great chasm is filled up
between that kind of dynamical philosophy and the empirical attainments
of physics—as, for example, in regard to the very different kinds of
effects exhibited by simple substances—a thing which, let us say at
once, we consider to be impossible.
We may therefore be permitted, in the room of the hitherto prevailing
dynamic mode of representation, to place our own without further
remark—a procedure which will no doubt clearly show wherein the latter
differs from the former, and by which of the two the Doctrine of Nature
may most certainly be raised to a Science of Nature.
VI.
INTERNAL ORGANIZATION OF THE SYSTEM OF SPECULATIVE PHYSICS.
1.
An inquiry into the Principle of speculative physics must be preceded by
inquiries into the distinction between the speculative and the empirical
generally. This depends mainly upon the conviction that between
empiricism and theory there is such a complete opposition that there can
be no third thing in which the two may be united; that, therefore, the
idea of Experimental Science is a mongrel idea, which implies no
connected thought, or rather, which cannot be thought at all. What is
pure empiricism is not science, and, _vice versâ_, what is science is
not empiricism. This is not said for the purpose of at all depreciating
empiricism, but is meant to exhibit it in its true and proper light.
Pure empiricism, be its object what it may, is history (the absolute
opposite of theory), and, conversely, history alone is empiricism.[19]
Physics, as empiricism, are nothing but a collection of facts, of
accounts of what has been observed—what has happened under natural or
artificial circumstances. In what we at present designate physics,
empiricism and science run riot together, and for that very reason they
are neither one thing nor another.
Our aim, in view of this object, is to separate science and empiricism
as soul and body, and by admitting nothing into science which is not
susceptible of an _à priori_ construction, to strip empiricism of all
theory, and restore it to its original nakedness.
The opposition between empiricism and science rests therefore upon this:
that the former regards its object in _being_—as something already
prepared and accomplished; science, on the other hand, views its object
in _becoming_, and as something that has yet to be accomplished. As
science cannot set out from anything that is a product—that is, a
thing—it must set out from the unconditioned; the first inquiry of
speculative physics is that which relates to the unconditioned in
natural science.
2.
As this inquiry is, in the Outlines, deduced from the highest
principles, the following may be regarded as merely an illustration of
those inquiries:
Inasmuch as everything of which we can say that it _is_, is of a
conditioned nature, it is only _being itself_ that can be the
unconditioned. But seeing that individual being, as a conditioned, can
be thought only as a particular limitation of the productive activity
(the sole and last substrate of all reality) _being itself_ is _thought_
as the same productive activity _in its unlimitedness_. For the
philosophy of nature, therefore, nature is originally only productivity,
and from this as its principle science must set out.
So long as we know the totality of objects only as the sum of being,
this totality is a mere world—that is, a mere product for us. It would
certainly be impossible in the science of Nature to rise to a higher
idea than that of being, if all permanence (which is thought in the idea
of being) were not deceptive, and really a continuous and uniform
reproduction.
In so far as we regard the totality of objects not merely as a product,
but at the same time necessarily as productive, it rises into _Nature_
for us, and this _identity of the product and the productivity_, and
this alone is implied, even in the ordinary use of language by the idea
of Nature.
Nature as a mere product (_natura naturata_) we call Nature as object
(with this alone all empiricism deals). Nature as productivity (_natura
naturans_) we call Nature as subject (with this alone all theory deals).
As the object is never unconditioned, something absolutely non-objective
must be put into Nature; this absolutely non-objective is nothing else
but that original productivity of Nature. In the ordinary view it
vanishes in the product: conversely in the philosophic view the product
vanishes in the productivity.
Such identity of the product and the productivity in the original
conception of Nature is expressed by the ordinary views of Nature as a
whole, which is at once the cause and the effect of itself, and is in
its duplicity (which goes through all phenomena) again identical.
Furthermore, with this idea the identity of the Real and the Ideal
agrees—an identity which is thought in the idea of every product of
Nature, and in view of which alone the nature of art can be placed in
opposition thereto. For whereas in art the idea precedes the act—the
execution—in Nature idea and act are rather contemporary and one; the
idea passes immediately over into the product, and cannot be separated
from it.
This identity is cancelled by the empirical view, which sees in Nature
only the effect (although on account of the continual wandering of
empiricism into the field of science, we have, even in purely empirical
physics, maxims which presuppose an idea of Nature as subject—as, for
example, Nature chooses the shortest way; Nature is sparing in causes
and lavish in effects); it is also cancelled by speculation, which looks
only at _cause_ in Nature.
3.
We can say of Nature as object that it _is_, not of Nature as subject;
for this is being or productivity.
This absolute productivity must pass over into an empirical nature. In
the idea of absolute productivity, is the thought of an ideal infinity.
The ideal infinity must become an empirical one.
But empirical infinity is an infinite becoming. Every infinite series is
but the exhibition of an intellectual or ideal infinity. The original
infinite series (the ideal of all infinite series) is that wherein our
intellectual infinity evolves itself, viz., _Time_. The activity which
sustains this series is the same as that which sustains our
consciousness; consciousness, however, is _continuous_. Time, therefore,
as the evolution of that activity, cannot be produced by composition.
Now, as all other infinite series are only imitations of the originally
infinite series, Time, no infinite series can be otherwise than
continuous. In the original evolution the retarding agent (without which
the evolution would take place with infinite rapidity) is nothing but
_original reflection_; the necessity of reflection upon our acting in
every organic phase (continued duplicity in identity) is the secret
stroke of art whereby our being receives _permanence_.
Absolute continuity, therefore, exists only for the intuition, but not
for the _reflection_. Intuition and reflection are opposed to each
other. The infinite series is continuous for the productive
_intuition_—interrupted and composite for the _reflection_. It is on
this _contradiction_ between intuition and reflection that those
sophisms are based, in which the possibility of all motion is contested,
and which are solved at every successive step by the productive
activity. To the intuition, for example, the action of gravity takes
place with perfect continuity; to the reflection, by fits and starts.
Hence all the laws of mechanics, whereby that which is properly only the
object of the productive intuition becomes an object of reflection, are
really only laws for the reflection. Hence those fictitious notions of
mechanics, the atoms of time in which gravitation acts, the law that the
moment of solicitation is infinitely small, because otherwise an
infinite rapidity would be produced in finite time, &c., &c. Hence,
finally, the assertion that in mathematics no infinite series can really
be represented as continuous, but only as advancing by fits and starts.
The whole of this inquiry into the opposition between reflection and the
productivity of the intuition, serves only to enable us to deduce the
general statement that in _all_ productivity, and in productivity alone,
there is absolute _continuity_—a statement of importance in the
consideration of the whole of Nature; inasmuch, for example, as the law
that in Nature there is no leap, that there is a continuity of forms in
it, &c., is confined to the original productivity of Nature, in which
certainly there must be continuity, whereas from the stand-point of
reflection all things must appear _disconnected_ and _without_
continuity—placed beside each other, as it were; we must therefore admit
that both parties are right; those, namely, who assert continuity in
Nature—for example, in organic Nature—no less than those who deny it,
when we take into consideration the difference of their respective
stand-points; and we thereby, at the same time, arrive at the
distinction between dynamical and atomistic physics; for, as will soon
become apparent, the two are distinguished only by the fact that the
former occupies the stand-point of _intuition_, the latter that of
_reflection_.
4.
These general principles being presupposed, we shall be able, with more
certainty, to reach our aim, and make an exposition of the internal
organism of our system.
(_a_) In the idea of becoming, we think the idea of gradualness. But an
absolute productivity will exhibit itself empirically as a becoming with
infinite rapidity, whereby there results nothing real for the intuition.
(Inasmuch as Nature must in reality be thought as engaged in infinite
evolution, the permanence, the resting of the products of Nature—the
organic ones, for instance—is not to be viewed as an absolute resting,
but only as an evolution proceeding with infinitely small rapidity or
with infinite tardiness. But hitherto evolution, with even finite
rapidity, not to speak of infinitely small rapidity, has not been
constructed.)
(_b_) That the evolution of Nature should take place with finite
rapidity, and thus become an object of intuition, is not thinkable
without an original limitation (a being limited) of the productivity.
(_c_) But if Nature be absolute productivity, then the ground of this
limitation may lie _outside of it_. Nature is originally _only_
productivity; there can, therefore, be nothing determined in this
productivity (all determination is negation) and so products can never
be reached by it. If products are to be reached, the productivity must
pass from being undetermined to being determined—that is, it must, as
pure productivity, be cancelled. If now the ground of determination of
productivity lay outside of Nature, Nature would not be originally
absolutely productivity. Determination, that is, negation, must
certainly come into Nature; but this negation, viewed from a higher
stand-point, must again be positivity.
(_d_) But if the ground of this limitation lies _within Nature itself_,
then Nature ceases to be _pure identity_. (Nature, in so far as it is
only productivity, is pure identity, and there is in it absolutely
nothing capable of being distinguished. In order that anything may be
distinguished in it, its identity must be cancelled—Nature must not be
identity, but duplicity.)
Nature must originally be an object to itself; this change of the pure
subject into a self-object is unthinkable without an original sundering
in Nature itself.
This duplicity cannot therefore be further deduced physically; for, as
the condition of all Nature generally, it is the principle of all
physical explanation, and all physical explanation can only have for its
aim the reduction of all the antitheses which appear in Nature to that
original antithesis in the heart of Nature, _which does not, however,
itself appear_. Why is there no original phenomenon of Nature without
this duplicity, if in Nature all things are not mutually subject and
object to each other _ad infinitum_, and Nature even, in its origin, at
once product and productive?
(_e_) If Nature is originally duplicity, there must be opposite
tendencies even in the original productivity of Nature. (The positive
tendency must be opposed by another, which is, as it were,
anti-productive—retarding production; not as the contradictory, but as
the negative—the really opposite of the former.) It is only then that,
in spite of its being limited, there is no passivity in Nature, when
even that which limits it is again positive, and its original duplicity
is a contest of really opposite tendencies.
(_f_) In order to arrive at a product, these opposite tendencies must
concur. But as they are supposed equal, (for there is no ground for
supposing them unequal,) wherever they meet they will annihilate each
other; the product is therefore = 0, and once more no product is
reached.
This inevitable, though hitherto not very closely remarked contradiction
(namely, that a product can arise only through the concurrence of
opposite tendencies, while at the same time these opposite tendencies
mutually annihilate each other) is capable of being solved only in the
following manner: There is absolutely no _subsistence_ of a product
thinkable, _without a continual process of being reproduced_. The
product must be thought as _annihilated at every step_, and at _every
step reproduced anew_. We do not really see the subsisting of a product,
but only the continual process of being reproduced.
(It is of course very conceivable how the series 1-1+1-1... on to
infinity is thought as equal neither to 1 nor to 0. The reason however
why this series is thought as =1/2 lies deeper. There is one absolute
magnitude (=1), which, though continually annihilated in this series,
continually recurs, and by this recurrence produces, not itself, but the
mean between itself and nothing.—Nature, as object, is that which comes
to pass in such an infinite series, and is = a fraction of the original
unit, to which the never cancelled duplicity supplies the numerator.)
(_g_) If the subsistence of the product is a continual process of being
reproduced, then all _persistence_ also is only in nature as _object_;
in nature as _subject_ there is only infinite _activity_.
The product is originally nothing but a mere point, a mere limit, and it
is only from Nature’s combatting against this point that it is, so to
speak, raised to a full sphere—to a product. (Suppose, for illustration,
a stream; it is _pure identity_; where it meets resistance, there is
formed a whirlpool; this whirlpool is not anything abiding, but
something that every moment vanishes, and every moment springs up
anew.—In Nature there is originally nothing distinguishable; all
products are, so to speak, still in solution, and invisible in the
universal productivity. It is only when retarding points are given, that
they are thrown off and advance out of the universal identity.—At every
such point the stream breaks (the productivity is annihilated), but at
every step there comes a new wave which fills up the sphere).
The philosophy of nature has not to explain the productive (side) of
nature; for if it does not posit this as in nature originally, it will
never bring it into nature. It has to explain the permanent. But the
fact _that_ anything should become permanent in nature, can itself
receive its explanation only from that contest of nature _against all
permanence_. The products would appear as mere points, if nature did not
give them extension and depth by its own pressure, and the products
themselves would last only an instant, if nature did not at every
instant crowd up against them.
(_h_) This seeming product, which is reproduced at every step, cannot be
a really infinite product; for otherwise productivity would actually
exhaust itself in it; in like manner it cannot be a finite product; for
it is the force of the whole of nature that pours itself into it. It
must therefore be at once infinite and finite; it must be only seemingly
finite, but in infinite development.
* * * * *
The point at which this product originally comes in, is the universal
point of retardation in nature, the point from which all evolution in
nature begins. But in nature, as it is evolved, this point lies not here
or there, but everywhere where there is a product.
This product is a finite one, but as the infinite productivity of nature
concentrates itself in it, it must have a tendency to infinite
development.—And thus gradually, and through all the foregoing
intermediate links, we have arrived at the construction of that infinite
becoming—the empirical exhibition of an ideal infinity.
We behold in what is called nature (i. e. in this assemblage of
individual objects), not the primal product itself, but its evolution,
(hence the point of retardation cannot remain _one_.)—By what means
_this_ evolution is again absolutely retarded, which must happen, if we
are to arrive at a fixed product, has not yet been explained.
But through this product an original infinity evolves itself; this
infinity can never decrease. The magnitude which evolves itself in an
infinite series, is still infinite at every point of the line; and thus
nature will be still infinite at every point of the evolution.
There is only one original point of retardation to productivity; but any
number of points of retardation to evolution may be thought. Every such
point is marked for us by a product; but at every point of the evolution
nature is still infinite; therefore nature is still infinite in every
product, and in every one lies the germ of a universe.[20]
(The question, by what means the infinite tendency is retarded in the
product, is still unanswered. The original retardation in the
productivity of nature, explains only why the evolution takes place with
finite rapidity, but not why it takes place with infinitely small
rapidity.)
(_i_) The product evolves itself _ad infinitum_. In this evolution,
therefore, nothing can happen, which is not already a product
(synthesis), and which might not divide up into new factors, each of
these again having its factors.
Thus even by an analysis pursued _ad infinitum_, we could never arrive
at anything in nature which should be absolutely simple.
(_k_) If however we _suppose_ the evolution as completed, (although it
_never_ can be completed,) still the evolution could not stop at
anything which was a product, but only at the purely productive.
The question arises, whether a final, such that it is no longer a
substrate, but the cause of all substrate, no longer a product, but
absolutely productive—we will not say _occurs_, for that is unthinkable,
but—can at least be proved in experience.
(_l_) Inasmuch as it bears the character of the unconditioned, it would
have to exhibit itself as something, which, although itself not in
space, is still the principle of all occupation of space.
What occupies space is not matter, for matter is the occupied space
itself. That, therefore, which occupies space cannot be matter. Only
that which is, is in space, not _being itself_.
It is self-evident that no positive external intuition is possible of
that which _is_ not in space. It would therefore have to be capable of
being exhibited negatively. This happens in the following manner:
That which is in space, is, as such, mechanically and chemically
destructible. That which is not destructible either mechanically or
chemically must therefore lie outside of space. But it is only the final
ground of all quality that has anything of this nature; for although one
quality may be extinguished by another, this can nevertheless only
happen in a third product, C, for the formation and maintenance of which
A and B, (the opposite factors of C,) must continue to act.
But this indestructible (somewhat), which is thinkable only as pure
intensity, is, as the cause of all substrate, at the same time the
principle of divisibility _ad infinitum_. (A body, divided _ad
infinitum_ still occupies space in the same degree with its smallest
part.)
That, therefore, which is purely productive without being a product, is
but the final ground of quality. But every quality is a determinate one,
whereas productivity is originally indeterminate. In the qualities,
therefore, productivity appears as already retarded, and as it appears
most original in them generally, it appears in them most originally
retarded.
This is the point at which our mode of conception diverges from those of
the currently so-called dynamical physics.
Our assertion, briefly stated, is this:—If the infinite evolution of
nature were completed (which is impossible) it would separate up into
original and simple actions, or, if we may so express ourselves, into
simple productivities. Our assertion therefore is not: There are in
nature such simple actions; but only, they are the ideal grounds of the
explanation of quality. These _entelechies_ cannot actually be shown,
they do not _exist_; we have not therefore to explain here anything more
than is asserted, namely, that such original productivities must be
_thought_ as the grounds of the explanation of all quality. This proof
is as follows:
The affirmation that nothing which _is_ in space, that is, that nothing
at all is mechanically simple, requires no demonstration. That,
therefore, which is in reality simple, cannot be thought as in space,
but must be thought as outside of space. But outside of space only pure
intensity is thought. This idea of pure intensity is expressed by the
idea of action. It is not the product of this action that is simple, but
the action itself abstracted from the product, and it must be simple in
order that the product may be divisible _ad infinitum_. For although the
parts are near vanishing, the intensity must still remain. And this pure
intensity is what, even in infinite divisibility, sustains the
substrate.
If, therefore, the assertion that affirms something simple as the basis
of the explanation of quality is atomistic, then our philosophy is
atomistic. But, inasmuch as it places the simple in something that is
only productive without being a product, it is _dynamical atomistics_.
This much is clear, that if we admit an absolute division of nature into
its factors, the last (thing) that remains over, must be something,
which absolutely defies all division, that is, the simple. But the
simple can be thought only as dynamical, and as such it is not in space
at all (it designates only what is thought as altogether outside of
space-occupation); there is therefore no intuition of it possible,
except through its product. In like manner there is no measure for it
given but its product. For to pure thought it is the mere _origin_ of
the product (as the point is only the origin of the line), in one word
pure _entelechy_. But that which is known, not in itself, but only in
its product, is known altogether empirically. If, therefore, every
original quality, as quality (not as substrate, in which quality merely
inheres), must be thought as pure intensity, pure action, then qualities
generally are only the absolutely empirical in our knowledge of nature,
of which no construction is possible, and in respect to which there
remains nothing of the philosophy of nature, save the proof that they
are the absolute limit of its construction.
The question in reference to the ground of quality posits the evolution
of nature as completed, that is, it posits something merely thought, and
therefore can be answered only by an ideal ground of explanation. This
question adopts the stand-point of reflection (on the product), whereas
genuine dynamics always remain on the stand-point of intuition.
It must here, however, be at once remarked that if the ground of the
explanation of quality is conceived as an ideal one, the question only
regards the explanations of quality, in so far as it is thought as
absolute. There is no question, for instance, of quality, in so far as
it shows itself in the dynamical process. For quality, so far as it is
relative, there is certainly a [not merely ideal, but actually real]
ground of explanation and determination; quality in that case is
determined by its opposite, with which it is placed in conflict, and
this antithesis is itself again determined by a higher antithesis, and
so on back into infinity; so that, if this universal organization could
dissolve itself, all matter likewise would sink back into dynamical
inactivity, that is, into absolute defect of quality. (Quality is a
higher power of matter, to which the latter elevates itself by
reciprocity.) It is demonstrated in the sequel that the dynamical
process is a limited one for each individual sphere; because it is only
thereby that definite points of relation for the determination of
quality arise. This limitation of the dynamical process, that is, the
proper determination of quality, takes place by means of no force other
than that by which the evolution is universally and absolutely limited,
and this negative element is the only one in things that is indivisible,
and mastered by nothing.—The absolute relativity of all quality may be
shown from the electric relation of bodies, inasmuch as the same body
that is positive with one is negative with another, and conversely. But
we might now henceforth abide by the statement (which is also laid down
in the Outlines): _All quality is electricity_, and conversely, _the
electricity of a body is also its quality_, (for all difference of
quality is equal to difference of electricity, and all [chemical]
quality is reducible to electricity).—Everything that is sensible for us
(sensible in the narrower acceptation of the term, as colors, taste,
&c.), is doubtless sensible to us only _through_ electricity, and the
only _immediately_ sensible (element) would then be electricity,[21] a
conclusion to which the universal duality of every sense leads us
independently, inasmuch as in Nature there is properly only one duality.
In galvanism, sensibility, as a reagent, reduces all quality of bodies,
for which it is a reagent to an original difference. All bodies which,
in a chain, at all affect the sense of taste or that of sight, be their
differences ever so great, are either alkaline or acid, excite a
negative or positive shock, and here they always appear as active in a
higher than the merely chemical power.
Quality considered as absolute is inconstructible, because quality
generally is not anything absolute, and there is no other quality at
all, save that which bodies show mutually in relation to each other, and
all quantity is something in virtue of which the body is, so to speak,
raised above itself.
All hitherto attempted construction of quality reduces itself to the two
attempts; to express qualities by figures, and so, for each original
quality, to assume a particular figure in Nature; or else, to express
quality by analytical formulæ (in which the forces of attraction and
repulsion supply the negative and positive magnitudes.) To convince
oneself of the futility of this attempt, the shortest method is to
appeal to the emptiness of the explanations to which it gives rise.
Hence we limit ourselves here to the single remark, that through the
construction of all matter out of the two fundamental forces, different
degrees of density may indeed be constructed, but certainly never
different qualities as qualities; for although all dynamical
(qualitative) changes appear, in their lowest stage, as changes of the
fundamental forces, yet we see at that stage only the product of the
process—not the _process itself_—and those changes are _what require
explanation_, and the ground of explanation must therefore certainly be
sought in something higher.
The only possible ground of explanation for quality is an ideal one;
because this ground itself presupposes something purely ideal. If any
one inquire into the final ground of quality, he transports himself back
to the starting point of Nature. But where is this starting point? and
does not all quality consist in this, that matter is prevented by the
general concatenation from reverting into its originality?
From the point at which reflection and intuition separate, a separation,
be it remarked, which is possible only on the hypothesis of the
evolutions being complete, physics divide into the two opposite
directions, into which the two systems, the atomistic and the dynamical,
have been divided.
The _dynamical_ system _denies_ the absolute evolution of Nature, and
passes from Nature as synthesis (i. e. Nature as subject) to Nature as
evolution (i. e. Nature as object); the atomistic system passes from the
evolution, as the original, to Nature as synthesis; the former passes
from the stand-point of intuition to that of reflection; the latter from
the stand-point of reflection to that of intuition.
Both directions are equally possible. If the analysis only is right,
then the synthesis must be capable of being found again through
analysis, just as the analysis in its turn can be found through the
synthesis. But whether the analysis is correct can be tested only by the
fact that we can pass from it again to the synthesis. The synthesis
therefore is, and continues, the absolutely presupposed.
The problems of the one system turn exactly round into those of the
other; that which, in atomical physics, is the cause of the
_composition_ of Nature is, in dynamical physics, _that which checks
evolution_. The former explains the composition of Nature by the force
of cohesion, whereby, however, no continuity is ever introduced into it;
the latter, on the contrary, explains cohesion by the continuity of
evolution. (All cohesion is originally only in the productivity.)
_Both systems set out from something purely ideal._ Absolute synthesis
is as much purely _ideal_ as absolute analysis. The Real occurs only in
Nature as _product_; but Nature is not product, either when thought as
absolute involution or as absolute evolution; product is what is
contained between the two extremes.
The first problem for both systems is to construct the product—i. e.
that wherein those opposites become real. Both reckon with purely
_ideal_ magnitudes so long as the product is not constructed: it is only
in the _directions_ in which they accomplish this that they are opposed.
Both systems, as far as they have to deal with merely ideal factors,
have the same value, and the one forms the test of the other.—That which
is concealed in the depths of productive Nature must be reflected as
product in Nature as Nature, and thus the atomistic system must be the
continual reflex of the dynamical. In the Outlines, of the two
directions, that of atomistic physics has been chosen intentionally. It
will contribute not a little to the understanding of our science, if we
here demonstrate in the _productivity_ what was there shown in the
_product_.
(_m_) _In the pure productivity of Nature there is absolutely nothing
distinguishable except duality; it is only productivity dualized in
itself that gives the product._
Inasmuch as the absolute productivity arrives only at producing _per
se_, not at the producing of a determinate [somewhat], the tendency of
Nature, in virtue of which product is arrived at, must be the _negative_
of productivity.
In Nature, in so far as it is real, there can no more be productivity
without a product, than a product without productivity. Nature can only
approximate to the two extremes, and it must be demonstrated _that_ it
approximates to both.
(α) _Pure productivity passes originally into formlessness._
Wherever Nature loses itself in formlessness, productivity exhausts
itself in it. (This is what we express when we talk of a becoming
latent.)—Conversely, wherever the form predominates—i. e. wherever the
productivity is _limited_—the productivity manifests itself; it appears,
not as a (representable) product, but _as_ productivity, although
passing over into one product, as in the phenomena of heat. (The idea of
imponderables is only a symbolic one.)
(β) _If productivity passes into formlessness, then, objectively
considered, it is the absolutely formless._
The boldness of the atomical system has been very imperfectly
comprehended. The idea which prevails in it, of an absolutely formless
[somewhat] everywhere incapable of manifestation as determinate matter,
is nothing other than the symbol of nature approximating to
productivity.—The nearer to productivity the nearer to formlessness.
(γ) _Productivity appears as productivity only when limits are set to
it._
That which is everywhere and in everything, is, for that very reason,
nowhere.—Productivity is fixed only by limitation.—_Electricity exists_
only at that point at which limits are given, and it is only a poverty
of conception that would look for anything else in its phenomena beyond
the phenomena of (limited) productivity.—The condition of _light_ is an
antithesis in the electric and galvanic, as well as in the chemical,
process, and even light which comes to us without our coöperation (the
phenomenon of productivity exerted all round by the sun) presupposes
that antithesis.[22]
(δ) _It is only limited productivity that gives the start to product._
(The explanation of product must begin at the origination of the fixed
point at which the start is made.) _The condition of all formation is
duality._ (This is the more profound signification that lies in Kant’s
construction of matter from opposite forces.)
Electrical phenomena are the general scheme for the construction of
matter universally.
(ε) _In Nature, neither pure productivity nor pure product can ever be
arrived at._
The former is the negation of all product, the latter the negation of
all productivity.
(Approximation to the former is the absolutely decomposible, to the
latter the absolutely indecomposible, of the atomistics. The former
cannot be thought without, at the same time, being the absolutely
incomposible, the latter without, at the same time, being the absolutely
composible.)
Nature will therefore originally be the middle [somewhat] arising out of
the two, and thus we arrive at the idea of _a productivity engaged in a
transition into product, or of a product that is productive ad
infinitum_. We hold to the latter definition.
The idea of the product (the fixed) and that of the productive (the
free) are mutually opposed.
Seeing that what we have postulated is already product, it can, if it is
productive at all, be productive only in a _determinate way_. But
determined productivity is (active) _formation_. That third [somewhat]
must therefore be _in the state of formation_.
But the product is supposed to be productive _ad infinitum_ (that
transition is never absolutely to take place); it will therefore at
every stage be productive in a determinate way; the productivity will
remain, but not the product.
(The question might arise how a transition from form to form is possible
at all here, when _no_ form is fixed. Still, that _momentary_ forms
should be reached, has already been rendered possible by the fact that
the evolution cannot take place with infinite rapidity, in which case,
therefore, for every step at least, the form is certainly a determinate
one.)
The product will appear as in _infinite metamorphosis_.
(From the stand-point of reflection, as continually on the leap from
fluid to solid, without ever reaching, however, the required
form.—Organizations that do not live in the grosser element, at least
live on the deep ground of the aërial sea—many pass over, by
metamorphoses, from one element into another; and what does the animal,
whose vital functions almost all consist in contractions, appear to be,
other than such a leap?)
The metamorphosis will not possibly take place _without rule_. For it
must remain within the original antithesis, and is thereby confined
within limits.[23]
This accordance with rule will express itself solely by an internal
relationship of forms—a relationship which again is not thinkable
without an archetype which lies at the basis of all, and which, with
however manifold divergences, they nevertheless all express.
But even with such a product, we have not that which we were in quest
of—a product which, while productive _ad infinitum_, remains _the same_.
That this product should remain the same seems unthinkable, because it
is not thinkable without an absolute checking or suppression of the
productivity.—The product would have to be checked, as the productivity
was checked, for it is still productive—checked by dualization and
limitation resulting therefrom. But it must at the same time be
explained how the productive product can be checked at each individual
stage of its formation, without its ceasing to be productive, or how,
_by dualization itself the permanence of the productivity is secured_.
In this way we have brought the reader as far as the problem of the
fourth section of the Outlines, and we leave him to find in it for
himself the solution along with the corollaries which it brings
up.—Meanwhile, we shall endeavor to indicate how the deduced product
would necessarily appear from the stand-point of _reflection_.
The product is the synthesis wherein the opposite extremes meet, which
on the one side are designated by the absolutely decomposible—on the
other as indecomposible.—How continuity comes into the absolute
discontinuity with which he sets out, the atomic philosopher endeavors
to explain by means of cohesive, plastic power, &c., &c. In vain, for
continuity is only _productivity_ itself.
The manifoldness of the forms which such product assumes in its
metamorphosis was explained by the difference in the stages of
development, so that, parallel with every step of development, goes a
particular form. The atomic philosopher posits in nature certain
fundamental forms, and as in it everything strives after form, and every
thing which does form itself has also its _particular_ form, so the
fundamental forms must be conceded, but certainly only as indicated in
nature, not as actually existent.
From the standpoint of reflection, the becoming of this product must
appear as a continual striving of the original actions toward the
production of a determinate form, and a continual recancelling of those
forms.
Thus, the product would not be product of a simple tendency; it would be
only the visible expression of an internal proportion, of an internal
equipoise of the original actions, which neither reduce themselves
mutually to absolute formlessness, nor yet, by reason of the universal
conflict, allow the production of a determinate and fixed form.
Hitherto (so long as we have had to deal merely with ideal factors),
there have been opposite directions of investigation possible; from this
point, inasmuch as we have to pursue a real product in its developments,
there is only one direction.
(η) By the unavoidable separation of productivity into opposite
directions at every single step of development the product itself is
separated into _individual products_, by which, however, for that very
reason, only different stages of development are marked.
That this is so may be shown _either_ in the products themselves, as is
done when we compare them with each other with regard to their form, and
search out a continuity of formation—an idea which, from the fact that
continuity is never in the _products_ (for the reflection), but always
only in the _productivity_, can never be perfectly realized.
In order to find continuity in productivity, the successive steps of the
_transition of productivity into product_ must be more clearly exhibited
than they have hitherto been. From the fact that the productivity gets
_limited_, (_v. supra_,) we have in the first instance only the start
for a product, only the fixed point for the productivity generally. It
must be shown _how_ the productivity gradually materializes itself, and
changes itself into products ever more and more fixed, so as to produce
a _dynamical scale in nature_, and this is the real subject of the
fundamental problem of the whole system.
In advance, the following may serve to throw light on the subject. In
the first place, a dualization of the productivity is demanded; the
cause through which this dualization is effected remains in the first
instance altogether outside of the investigation. By dualization a
change of contraction and expansion is perhaps conditioned. This change
is not something in matter, but is _matter itself_, and the first stage
of productivity passing over into product. _Product_ cannot be reached
except through a stoppage of this change, that is, through a third
[somewhat] which _fixes_ that change itself, and thus matter in its
lowest stage—in the _first_ power—would be an object of intuition; that
change would be seen in rest, or in equipoise, just as, conversely
again, by the suppression of the third [somewhat] matter might be raised
to a higher power. Now it might be possible that those products just
deduced stood upon _quite different degrees_ of materiality, or of _that
transition_, or that those different degrees were more or less
_distinguishable_ in the one than in the other; that is, a dynamical
scale of those products would thereby have to be demonstrated.
(_o_) In the _solution_ of the problem itself, we shall continue, in the
first instance, in the direction hitherto taken, without knowing where
it may lead us.
There are individual products brought into nature; but in these products
productivity, _as_ productivity, is held to be still always
distinguishable. Productivity has not yet absolutely passed over into
product. The subsistence of the product is supposed to be a continual
self-reproduction.
The problem arises: By what is this absolute transition—exhaustion of
the productivity in the product—prevented? or by what does its
subsistence become a continual self-reproduction?
It is absolutely unthinkable how the activity that everywhere tends
towards a product is prevented from going over into it _entirely_,
unless that transition is prevented _by external influences_, and the
product, if it is to subsist, is compelled at every step to reproduce
itself _anew_.
Up to this point, however, no trace has been discovered of a cause
opposed to the product (to organic nature). Such a cause can, therefore,
at present, only be postulated. We thought we saw the whole of nature
exhaust itself in that product, and it is only here that we remark, that
in order to comprehend such product, _something else_ must be
presupposed, and a new antithesis must come into nature.
Nature has hitherto been for us absolute _identity_ in duplicity; here
we come upon an antithesis that must again take place _within_ the
other. This antithesis must be capable of being shown in the deduced
product itself, if it is capable of being deduced at all.
The deduced product is an activity _directed outwards_; this cannot be
distinguished as such without an activity _directed inwards from
without_, (i. e. directed upon itself,) and this activity, on the other
hand, cannot be thought, unless it is _pressed back_ (reflected) from
without.
_In the opposite directions, which arise through this antithesis lies
the principle for the construction of all the phenomena of life_—on the
suppression of those opposite directions, life remains over, either as
_absolute activity_ or _absolute receptivity_, since it is possible only
as the perfect _inter-determination_ of receptivity and activity.
We therefore refer the reader to the Outlines themselves, and merely
call his attention to the higher stage of construction which we have
here reached.
We have above (_g_) explained the origin of a _product generally_ by a
struggle of nature against the original point of check, whereby this
point is raised to a full sphere, and thus receives permanence. Here,
since we are deducing a struggle of _external_ nature, not against a
mere point, but against a _product_, the first construction rises for us
to a _second_ power, as it were,—we have a double product, and thus it
might well be shown in the sequel that organic nature generally is only
the higher power of the inorganic, and that it rises above the latter
for the very reason that in it even that which was already product
_again_ becomes product.
Since the product, which we have deduced as the most primary, drives us
to a side of nature that is opposed to it, it is clear that our
construction of the origin of a product generally is _incomplete_, and
that we have not yet, by a long way, satisfied our problem; (the problem
of all science is to construct the origin of a fixed product.)
A productive product, as such, can subsist only under the influence of
external forces, because it is only thereby that productivity is
interrupted—prevented from being extinguished in the product. For these
external forces there must now again be a particular sphere; those
forces must lie in a world which is _not productive_. But that world,
for this very reason, would be a world fixed and undetermined in every
respect. The problem—how a product in nature is arrived at—has therefore
received a one-sided solution by all that has preceded. “The product is
checked by dualization of the productivity at every single step of
development.” But this is true only for the _productive_ product,
whereas we are here treating of a _non-productive_ product.
The contradiction which meets us here can be solved only by the finding
of a _general_ expression for the construction of a _product generally_,
(regardless of whether it is productive or has ceased to be so).
* * * * *
Since the existence of a world, that is _not productive_ (inorganic) is
in the first instance merely postulated, in order to explain the
productive one, so its conditions can be laid down only hypothetically,
and as we do not in the first instance know it at all except from its
opposition to the productive, those conditions likewise must be deduced
only from this opposition. From this it is of course clear,—what is also
referred to in the Outlines—that this second section, as well as the
first, contains throughout merely hypothetical truth, since neither
organic nor inorganic nature is explained without our having reduced the
construction of the two to a common expression, which, however, is
possible only through the synthetic part.—This must lead to the highest
and most general principles for the construction of a _nature_
generally; hence we must refer the reader who is concerned about a
knowledge of our system altogether to that part. The hypothetical
deduction of an inorganic world and its conditions we may pass over here
all the more readily, that they are sufficiently detailed in the
Outlines, and hasten to the most general and the highest problem of our
science.
* * * * *
The most general problem of speculative physics may now be expressed
thus: _To reduce the construction of organic and inorganic products to a
common expression_.
We can state only the main principles of such a solution, and of these,
for the most part, only such as have not been completely educed in the
Outlines themselves—(3d principal section.)
A.
Here at the very beginning we lay down the principle that _as the
organic product is the product in the second power, the_ ORGANIC
_construction of the product_ must be, _at least, the sensuous image of
the_ ORIGINAL _construction of all product_.
(_a_) In order that the productivity may be at all fixed at a point,
_limits must be given_. Since _limits_ are the condition of the first
phenomenon, the cause whereby limits are produced _cannot be a
phenomenon_, it goes back into the interior of nature, or of each
respective product.
In organic nature, this limitation of productivity is shown by what we
call sensibility, which must be thought as the first condition of the
construction of the organic product.
(_b_) The immediate effect of confined productivity is a _change of
contraction and expansion_ in the matter already given, and as we now
know, constructed, as it were, for the second time.
(_c_) Where this change stops, productivity passes over into product,
and where it is again restored, product passes over into productivity.
For since the product must remain productive _ad infinitum_, _those
three stages of productivity_ must be _capable of being_ DISTINGUISHED
in the product; the absolute transition of the latter into product is
the cancelling of product itself.
(_d_) As these three stages are distinguishable in the _individual_, so
they must be distinguishable in _organic nature throughout_, and the
scale of organizations is nothing more than a scale of _productivity
itself_. (Productivity exhausts itself to degree _c_ in the product _A_,
and can begin with the product _B_ only at the point where it left off
with _A_, that is, with degree _d_, and so on downwards to the
_vanishing_ of all productivity. If we knew the absolute _degree_ of
productivity of the _earth_ for example—a degree which is determined by
the earth’s relation to the sun—the limit of organization upon it might
be thereby more accurately determined than by incomplete
experience—which must be incomplete for this reason, if for no other,
that the catastrophes of nature have, beyond doubt, swallowed the last
links of the chain. A true system of Natural History, which has for its
object not the _products_ [of nature] but _nature itself_, follows up
the one productivity that battles, so to speak, against freedom, through
all its windings and turnings, to the point at which it is at last
compelled to perish in the product.)
It is upon this dynamical scale, in the individual, as well as in the
whole of organic nature, that the construction of all organic phenomena
rests.
B.[24]
These principles, stated universally, lead to the following fundamental
principles of a universal theory of nature.
(_a_) Productivity must be _primarily_ limited. Since _outside_ of
limited productivity there is [only] _pure identity_ the limitation
cannot be established by a difference already existing, and therefore
must be so by an _opposition_ arising in _productivity itself_—an
opposition to which we here revert as a first postulate.[25]
(_b_) This difference thought _purely_ is the first condition of all
[natural] activity, the productivity is attracted and repelled[26]
between opposites (the primary limits); in this change of expansion and
contraction there arises necessarily a common element, but one which
exists only _in change_. If it is to exist _outside_ of change, then the
_change itself_ must become fixed. The _active_ in change is the
productivity sundered within itself.
(_c_) It is asked:
(α) By what means such change can be fixed at all; it cannot be fixed by
anything that is contained as a link in change itself, and must
therefore be fixed by a _tertium quid_.
(β) But this _tertium quid_ must be able to _invade_ that original
antithesis; but _outside_ of that antithesis nothing _is_[27]; it (that
_tertium quid_) must therefore be primarily contained in it, as
something which is mediated by the antithesis, and by which in turn the
antithesis is mediated; for otherwise there is no ground why it should
be primarily contained in that antithesis.
The antithesis is dissolution of identity. But nature is _primarily_
identity. _In_ that antithesis, therefore, there must again be a
struggle after identity. This struggle is immediately conditioned
_through_ the antithesis; for if there was no antithesis, there would be
identity, absolute rest, and therefore no _struggle_ toward identity.
If, on the other hand, there were not identity in the antithesis, the
antithesis itself could not endure.
Identity produced out of difference is indifference; that _tertium quid_
is therefore a _struggle towards indifference_—a struggle which is
conditioned, by the difference itself, and by which it, on the other
hand, is conditioned.—(The difference must not be looked upon as a
difference at all, and is nothing for the intuition, except through a
third, which sustains it—to which change itself adheres.)
This _tertium quid_, therefore, is all that is substrate in that primal
change. But substrate posits change as much as change posits substrate;
and there is here no first and no second; but difference and struggle
towards indifference, are, as far time is concerned, one and
contemporary.
_Axiom._ No identity in Nature is absolute, but all is only
indifference.
Since that _tertium quid_ itself _presupposes_ the primary antithesis,
the antithesis itself cannot be _absolutely_ removed by it; _the
condition of the continuance of that tertium quid_ [of that third
activity, or of Nature] _is the perpetual continuance of the
antithesis_, just as, conversely, _the continuance of the antithesis is
conditioned by the continuance of the tertium quid_.
But how, then, shall the antithesis be thought as continuing?
We have one primary antithesis, between the limits of which all Nature
must lie; if we assume that the factors of this antithesis can really
pass over into each other, or go together absolutely in some _tertium
quid_ (some individual product), then the antithesis is removed, and
along with it the _struggle_, and so all the activity of nature. But
that the antithesis should endure, is thinkable only by its being
_infinite_—by the extreme limits being held asunder _in infinitum_—_so
that always only the mediating links of the synthesis, never the last
and absolute synthesis itself, can be produced_, in which case it is
only _relative points of indifference_ that are always attained, never
absolute ones, and every successively originated difference leaves
behind a new and still unremoved antithesis, and this again goes over
into indifference, which, in its turn, _partially_ removes the primary
antithesis. Through the original antithesis and the struggle towards
indifference, there arises a product, but the product partially does
away with the antithesis; through the doing away of that part—that is,
through the origination of the product itself—there arises a new
antithesis, different from the one that has been done away with, and
through it, a product different from the first; but even this leaves the
absolute antithesis unremoved, duality therefore, and through it a
product, will arise anew, and so on to infinity.
Let us say, for example, that by the product _A_, the antitheses _c_ and
_d_ are united, the antitheses _b_ and _e_ still lie outside of that
union. This latter is done away with in _B_, but this product also
leaves the antithesis _a_ and _f_ unremoved; if we say that _a_ and _f_
mark the extreme limits, then the union of these will be that product
which can never be arrived at.
Between the extremes _a_ and _f_, lie the antitheses _c_ and _d_, _b_
and _e_; but the series of these intermediate antitheses is infinite;
all these intermediate antitheses are included in the one absolute
antithesis.—In the product _A_, of _a_ only _c_, and of _f_ only _d_ is
removed; let what remains of _a_ be called _b_, and of _f_, _e_; these
will indeed, by virtue of the absolute struggle towards indifference,
become again united, but they leave a new antithesis uncancelled, and so
there remains between _a_ and _f_ an infinite series of intermediate
antitheses, and the product in which those absolutely cancel themselves
never _is_, but only _becomes_.
This infinitely progressive formation must be thus represented. The
original antithesis would necessarily be cancelled in the primal product
_A_. The product would necessarily fall at the indifference-point of _a_
and _f_, but inasmuch as the antithesis is an absolute one, which can be
cancelled only in an infinitely continued, never actual, synthesis, _A_
must be thought as the centre of an infinite periphery, (whose diameter
is the infinite line _a f_.) Since in the product of _a_ and _f_, only
_c_ and _d_ are united, there arises in it the new division _b_ and _e_,
the product will therefore divide up into opposite directions; at the
point where the struggle towards indifference attains the preponderance,
_b_ and _e_ will combine and form a new product different from the
first—but between _a_ and _f_, there still lie an infinite number of
antitheses; the indifference-point _B_ is therefore the centre of a
periphery which is comprehended in the first, but is itself again
infinite, and so on.
The antithesis of _b_ and _e_ in _B_ is _maintained_ through _A_,
because it (_A_) leaves the antithesis _un-united_; in like manner the
antithesis in _C_ is _maintained_ through _B_, because _B_, in its turn,
cancels only a part of _a_ and _f_. But the antithesis in _C_ is
maintained through _B_, only in so far as _A_ maintains the antithesis
in _B_.[28] What therefore in _C_ and _B_ results _from_ this
antithesis—[suppose, for example, the result of it were universal
gravitation]—is _occasioned_ by the common influence of _A_, so that _B_
and _C_, and the infinite number of other products that come, as
intermediate links between _a_ and _f_, are, in relation to _A_, only
_one_ product.—The _difference_, which remains over in _A_ after the
union of _c_ and _d_, is only _one_, into which then _B_, _C_, &c.,
again divide.
But the continuance of the antithesis is, in the case of every product,
the condition of the struggle towards indifference, and thus a struggle
towards indifference is maintained through _A_ in _B_, and through _B_
in _C_.—But the antithesis which _A_ leaves uncancelled, is only one,
and therefore also this tendency in _B_, in _C_, and so on to infinity,
is only conditioned and maintained through _A_.
The organization thus determined is no other than the organization of
the Universe in the system of gravitation.—_Gravity_ is _simple_, but
its _condition_ is duplicity.—Indifference arises only out of
difference.—The cancelled duality is matter, inasmuch as it is only
mass.
The _absolute_ indifference-point exists nowhere, but is, as it were,
divided among several _single_ points.—The Universe which forms itself
from the centre towards the periphery, _seeks_ the point at which even
the extreme antitheses of nature cancel themselves; the impossibility of
this cancelling guarantees the infinity of the Universe.
From every product _A_, the uncancelled antithesis is carried over to a
new one, _B_, the former thereby becoming the cause of duality and
gravitation for _B_.—(This carrying over is what is called action by
distribution, the theory of which receives light only at this
point.[29])—Thus, for example, the sun, being only _relative_
indifference, maintains, as far as its sphere of action reaches, the
antithesis, which is the condition of weight upon the subordinate
world-bodies.[30]
The indifference is cancelled at every step, and at every step it is
restored. Hence, weight acts upon a body at rest as well as upon one in
motion.—The universal restoration of duality, and its recancelling at
every step, can [that is] appear only as a _nisus_ against a third
(somewhat). This third (somewhat) is therefore the pure zero—abstracted
from tendency it is nothing [= 0], therefore purely ideal, (marking only
direction)—a _point_.[31] Gravity [the centre of gravity] is in the case
of every total product only _one_ [for the antithesis is one], and so
also the relative indifference-point is only _one_. The
indifference-point of the _individual_ body marks only the line of
direction of its tendency towards the universal indifference-point;
hence this point may be regarded as the only one at which gravity acts;
just as that, whereby bodies alone attain consistence for us, is simply
this tendency outwards.[32]
Vertical falling towards this point is not a simple, but a compound
motion, and it is a subject for wonder that this has not been perceived
before.[33]
Gravity is not proportional to mass (for what is this mass but an
abstraction of the specific gravity which you have hypostatized?); but,
conversely, the mass of a body is only the expression of the momentum,
with which the antithesis in it cancels itself.
(_d_) By the foregoing, the construction of matter in general is
completed, but not the construction of specific difference in matter.
That which all the matter of _B_, _C_, &c., in relation to _A_ has
_common_ under it, is the difference which is not cancelled by _A_, and
which again cancels itself _in part_ in _B_ and _C_—hence, therefore,
the gravity mediated by that difference.
What _distinguishes B_ and _C_ from _A_ therefore, is the difference
which is not cancelled by _A_, and which becomes the condition of
gravity in the case of _B_ and _C_.—Similarly, what distinguishes _C_
from _B_ (if _C_ is a product subordinate to _B_), is the difference
which is not cancelled by _B_, and which is again carried over to _C_.
Gravity, therefore, is not the same thing for the higher and for the
subaltern world-bodies, and there is as much variety in the central
forces as in the conditions of attraction.
The means whereby, in the products _A_, _B_, _C_, which, in so far as
they are opposed to _each other_, represent products absolutely
_homogeneous_ [because the antithesis is the same for the _whole
product_,] another difference of individual products is possible, is the
possibility of a difference of relation between the factors in the
cancelling, so that, for example, in _X_, the positive factor, and in
_Y_, the negative factor, has the preponderance, (thus rendering the one
body positively, and the other negatively, electric).—All difference is
difference of electricity.[34]
(_e_) That the identity of matter is not _absolute_ identity, but only
_indifference_, can be proved from the possibility of again cancelling
the identity, and from the accompanying phenomena.[35] We may be
allowed, for brevity’s sake, to include this recancelling, and its
resultant phenomena under the expression _dynamical process_, without,
of course, affirming decisively whether anything of the sort is
everywhere actual.
_Now there will be exactly as many stages in the dynamical process as
there are stages of transition from difference to indifference._