136.] (β) The one-and-same of this correlation (the self-relation

found in it) is thus immediately a negative self-relation. The

correlation is in short the mediating process whereby one and the

same is first unaffected towards difference, and secondly is the

negative self-relation, which repels itself as reflection-into-self to

difference, and invests itself (as reflection-into-something-else) with

existence, whilst it conversely leads back this reflection-into-other

to self-relation and indifference. This gives the correlation of

Force and its Expression.

The relationship of whole and part is the immediate and therefore

unintelligent (mechanical) relation,--a revulsion of self-identity

into mere variety. Thus we pass from the whole to the parts, and from

the parts to the whole: in the one we forget its opposition to the

other, while each on its own account, at one time the whole, at another

the parts, is taken to be an independent existence. In other words,

when the parts are declared to subsist in the whole, and the whole

to consist of the parts, we have either member of the relation at

different times taken to be permanently subsistent, while the other is

non-essential. In its superficial form the mechanical nexus consists in

the parts being independent of each other and of the whole.

This relation may be adopted for the progression _ad infinitum,_

in the case of the divisibility of matter: and then it becomes an

unintelligent alternation with the two sides. A thing at one time is

taken as a whole: then we go on to specify the parts: this specifying

is forgotten, and what was a part is regarded as a whole: then the

specifying of the part comes up again, and so on for ever. But if this

infinity be taken as the negative which it is, it is the _negative_

self-relating element in the correlation,--Force, the self-identical

whole, or immanency; which yet supersedes this immanency and gives

itself expression;--and conversely the expression which vanishes and

returns into Force.

Force, notwithstanding this infinity, is also finite: for the content,

or the one and the same of the Force and its out-putting, is this

identity at first only for the observer: the two sides of the relation

are not yet, each on its own account, the concrete identity of that

one and same, not yet the totality. For one another they are therefore

different, and the relationship is a finite one. Force consequently

requires solicitation from without: it works blindly: and on account of

this defectiveness of form, the content is also limited and accidental.

It is not yet genuinely identical with the form: not yet is it _as_ a

notion and an end; that is to say, it is not intrinsically and actually

determinate. This difference is most vital, but not easy to apprehend:

it will assume a clearer formulation when we reach Design. If it be

overlooked, it leads to the confusion of conceiving God as Force, a

confusion from which Herder's God especially suffers.

It is often said that the nature of Force itself is unknown and only

its manifestation apprehended. But, in the first place, it may be

replied, every article in the import of Force is the same as what

is specified in the Exertion: and the explanation of a phenomenon

by a Force is to that extent a mere tautology. What is supposed to

remain unknown, therefore, is really nothing but the empty form of

reflection-into-self, by which alone the Force is distinguished from

the Exertion,--and that form too is something familiar. It is a form

that does not make the slightest addition to the content and to the

law, which have to be discovered from the phenomenon alone. Another

assurance always given is that to speak of forces implies no theory as

to their nature: and that being so, it is impossible to see why the

form of Force has been introduced into the sciences at all. In the

second place the nature of Force is undoubtedly unknown: we are still

without any necessity binding and connecting its content together in

itself, as we are without necessity in the content, in so far as it is

expressly limited and hence has its character by means of another thing

outside it.

(1) Compared with the immediate relation of whole and parts, the

relation between force and its putting-forth may be considered

infinite. In it that identity of the two sides is realised, which in

the former relation only existed for the observer. The whole, though

we can see that it consists of parts, ceases to be a whole when it

is divided: whereas force is only shown to be force when it exerts

itself, and in its exercise only comes back to itself. The exercise is

only force once more. Yet, on further examination even this relation

will appear finite, and finite in virtue of this mediation: just

as, conversely, the relation of whole and parts is obviously finite

in virtue of its immediacy. The first and simplest evidence for the

finitude of the mediated relation of force and its exercise is, that

each and every force is conditioned and requires something else than

itself for its subsistence. For instance, a special vehicle of magnetic

force, as is well known, is iron, the other properties of which, such

as its colour, specific weight, or relation to acids, are independent

of this connexion with magnetism. The same thing is seen in all other

forces, which from one end to the other are found to be conditioned

and mediated by something else than themselves. Another proof of

the finite nature of force is that it requires solicitation before

it can put itself forth. That through which the force is solicited,

is itself another exertion of force, which cannot put itself forth

without similar solicitation. This brings us either to a repetition of

the infinite progression, or to a reciprocity of soliciting and being

solicited. In either case we have no absolute beginning of motion.

Force is not as yet, like the final cause, inherently self-determining:

the content is given to it as determined, and force, when it exerts

itself, is, according to the phrase, blind in its working. That phrase

implies the distinction between abstract force-manifestation and

teleological action.

(2) The oft-repeated statement, that the exercise of the force and

not the force itself admits of being known, must be rejected as

groundless. It is the very essence of force to manifest itself, and

thus in the totality of manifestation, conceived as a law, we at the

same time discover the force itself. And yet this assertion that force

in its own self is unknowable betrays a well-grounded presentiment

that this relation is finite. The several manifestations of a force at

first meet us in indefinite multiplicity, and in their isolation seem

accidental: but, reducing this multiplicity to its inner unity, which

we term force, we see that the apparently contingent is necessary, by

recognising the law that rules it. But the different forces themselves

are a multiplicity again, and in their mere juxtaposition seem to be

contingent. Hence in empirical physics, we speak of the forces of

gravity, magnetism, electricity, &c, and in empirical psychology of

the forces of memory, imagination, will, and all the other faculties.

All this multiplicity again excites a craving to know these different

forces as a single whole, nor would this craving be appeased even if

the several forces were traced back to one common primary force. Such

a primary force would be really no more than an empty abstraction,

with as little content as the abstract thing-in-itself. And besides

this, the correlation of force and manifestation is essentially a

mediated correlation (of reciprocal dependence), and it must therefore

contradict the notion of force to view it as primary or resting on

itself.

Such being the case with the nature of force, though we may consent to

let the world be called a manifestation of divine forces, we should

object to have God Himself viewed as a mere force. For force is after

all a subordinate and finite category. At the so-called renascence of

the sciences, when steps were taken to trace the single phenomena of

nature back to underlying forces, the Church branded the enterprise

as impious. The argument of the Church was as follows. If it be the

forces of gravitation, of vegetation, &c. which occasion the movements

of the heavenly bodies, the growth of plants, &c., there is nothing

left for divine providence, and God sinks to the level of a leisurely

on-looker, surveying this play of forces. The students of nature, it is

true, and Newton more than others, when they employed the reflective

category of force to explain natural phenomena, have expressly pleaded

that the honour of God, as the Creator and Governor of the world, would

not thereby be impaired. Still the logical issue of this explanation

by means of forces is that the inferential understanding proceeds to

fix each of these forces, and to maintain them in their finitude as

ultimate. And contrasted with this deinfinitised world of independent

forces and matters, the only terms in which it is possible still to

describe God will present Him in the abstract infinity of an unknowable

supreme Being in some other world far away. This is precisely the

position of materialism, and of modern 'free-thinking,' whose theology

ignores what God is and restricts itself to the mere fact _that_ He

is. In this dispute therefore the Church and the religious mind have

to a certain extent the right on their side. The finite forms of

understanding certainly fail to fulfil the conditions for a knowledge

either of Nature or of the formations in the world of Mind as they

truly are. Yet on the other side it is impossible to overlook the

formal right which, in the first place, entitles the empirical sciences

to vindicate the right of thought to know the existent world in all

the speciality of its content, and to seek something further than the

bare statement of mere abstract faith that God creates and governs the

world. When our religious consciousness, resting upon the authority of

the Church, teaches us that God created the world by His almighty will,

that He guides the stars in their courses, and vouchsafes to all His

creatures their existence and their well-being, the question Why? is

still left to answer. Now it is the answer to this question which forms

the common task of empirical science and of philosophy. When religion

refuses to recognise this problem, or the right to put it, and appeals

to the unsearchableness of the decrees of God, it is taking up the same

agnostic ground as is taken by the mere Enlightenment of understanding.

Such an appeal is no better than an arbitrary dogmatism, which

contravenes the express command of Christianity, to know God in spirit

and in truth, and is prompted by a humility which is not Christian, but

born of ostentatious bigotry.

137.] Force is a whole, which is in its own self negative

self-relation; and as such a whole it continually pushes

itself off from itself and puts itself forth. But since this

reflection-into-another (corresponding to the distinction between the

Parts of the Whole) is equally a reflection-into-self, this out-putting

is the way and means by which Force that returns back into itself is

as a Force. The very act of out-putting accordingly sets in abeyance

the diversity of the two sides which is found in this correlation,

and expressly states the identity which virtually constitutes their

content. The truth of Force and utterance therefore is that relation,

in which the two sides are distinguished only as Outward and Inward.

138.] (γ) The Inward (Interior) is the ground, when it

stands as the mere form of the one side of the Appearance and

the Correlation,--the empty form of reflection-into-self. As a

counterpart to it stands the Outward (Exterior),--Existence,

also as the form of the other side of the correlation, with the

empty characteristic of reflection-into-something-else. But Inward

and Outward are identified: and their identity is identity brought

to fulness in the content, that unity of reflection-into-self and

reflection-into-other which was forced to appear in the movement of

force. Both are the same one totality, and this unity makes them the

content.

139.] In the first place then, Exterior is the same content as

Interior. What is inwardly is also found outwardly, and _vice versâ._

The appearance shows nothing that is not in the essence, and in the

essence there is nothing but what is manifested.

140.] In the second place, Inward and Outward, as formal terms,

are also reciprocally opposed, and that thoroughly. The one is the

abstraction of identity with self; the other, of mere multiplicity

or reality. But as stages of the one form, they are essentially

identical: so that whatever is at first explicitly put only in the one

abstraction, is also as plainly and at one step only in the other.

Therefore what is only internal is also only external: and what is only

external, is so far only at first internal.

It is the customary mistake of reflection to take the essence to be

merely the interior. If it be so taken, even this way of looking at

it is purely external, and that sort of essence is the empty external

abstraction.

Ins Innere der Natur

Dringt sein erschaffner Geist,

Zu glücklich wenn er nur

Die äußere Schaale weist.[1]

It ought rather to have been said that, if the essence of nature is

ever described as the inner part, the person who so describes it

only knows its outer shell. In Being as a whole, or even in mere

sense-perception, the notion is at first only an inward, and for that

very reason is something external to Being, a subjective thinking

and being, devoid of truth.--In Nature as well as in Mind, so long

as the notion, design, or law are at first the inner capacity, mere

possibilities, they are first only an external, inorganic nature,

the knowledge of a third person, alien force, and the like. As a man

is outwardly, that is to say in his actions (not of course in his

merely bodily outwardness), so is he inwardly: and if his virtue,

morality, &c. are only inwardly his,--that is if they exist only in his

intentions and sentiments, and his outward acts are not identical with

them, the one half of him is as hollow and empty as the other.

The relation of Outward and Inward unites the two relations that

precede, and at the same time sets in abeyance mere relativity and

phenomenality in general. Yet so long as understanding keeps the Inward

and Outward fixed in their separation, they are empty forms, the one

as null as the other. Not only in the study of nature, but also of the

spiritual world, much depends on a just appreciation of the relation

of inward and outward, and especially on avoiding the misconception

that the former only is the essential point on which everything turns,

while the latter is unessential and trivial. We find this mistake made

when, as is often done, the difference between nature and mind is

traced back to the abstract difference between inner and outer. As for

nature, it certainly is in the gross external, not merely to the mind,

but even on its own part. But to call it external 'in the gross' is

not to imply an abstract externality--for there is no such thing. It

means rather that the Idea which forms the common content of nature and

mind, is found in nature as outward only, and for that very reason only

inward. The abstract understanding, with its 'Either--or,' may struggle

against this conception of nature. It is none the less obviously found

in our other modes of consciousness, particularly in religion. It is

the lesson of religion that nature, no less than the spiritual world,

is a revelation of God: but with this distinction, that while nature

never gets so far as to be conscious of its divine essence, that

consciousness is the express problem of the mind, which in the matter

of that problem is as yet finite. Those who look upon the essence of

nature as mere inwardness, and therefore inaccessible to us, take up

the same line as that ancient creed which regarded God as envious and

jealous; a creed which both Plato and Aristotle pronounced against long

ago. All that God is, He imparts and reveals; and He does so, at first,

in and through nature.

Any object indeed is faulty and imperfect when it is only inward, and

thus at the same time only outward, or, (which is the same thing,) when

it is only an outward and thus only an inward. For instance, a child,

taken in the gross as human being, is no doubt a rational creature;

but the reason of the child as child is at first a mere inward, in the

shape of his natural ability or vocation, &c. This mere inward, at the

same time, has for the child the form of a more outward, in the shape

of the will of his parents, the attainments of his teachers, and the

whole world of reason that environs him. The education and instruction

of a child aim at making him actually and for himself what he is at

first potentially and therefore for others, viz. for his grown-up

friends. The reason, which at first exists in the child only as an

inner possibility, is actualised through education: and conversely, the

child by these means becomes conscious that the goodness, religion, and

science which he had at first looked upon as an outward authority, are

his own and inward nature. As with the child so it is in this matter

with the adult, when, in opposition to his true destiny, his intellect

and will remain in the bondage of the natural man. Thus, the criminal

sees the punishment to which he has to submit as an act of violence

from without: whereas in fact the penalty is only the manifestation of

his own criminal will.

From what has now been said, we may learn what to think of a man who,

when blamed for his shortcomings, it may be, his discreditable acts,

appeals to the (professedly) excellent intentions and sentiments of

the inner self he distinguishes therefrom. There certainly may be

individual cases, where the malice of outward circumstances frustrates

well-meant designs, and disturbs the execution of the best-laid plans.

But in general even here the essential unity between inward and outward

is maintained. We are thus justified in saying that a man is what he

does; and the lying vanity which consoles itself with the feeling of

inward excellence, may be confronted with the words of the gospel: 'By

their fruits ye shall know them.' That grand saying applies primarily

in a moral and religious aspect, but it also holds good in reference

to performances in art and science. The keen eye of a teacher who

perceives in his pupil decided evidences of talent, may lead him to

state his opinion that a Raphael or a Mozart lies hidden in the boy:

and the result will show how far such an opinion was well-founded.

But if a daub of a painter, or a poetaster, soothe themselves by the

conceit that their head is full of high ideals, their consolation is

a poor one; and if they insist on being judged not by their actual

works but by their projects, we may safely reject their pretensions

as unfounded and unmeaning. The converse case however also occurs. In

passing judgment on men who have accomplished something great and good,

we often make use of the false distinction between inward and outward.

All that they have accomplished, we say, is outward merely; inwardly

they were acting from some very different motive, such as a desire to

gratify their vanity or other unworthy passion. This is the spirit of

envy. Incapable of any great action of its own, envy tries hard to

depreciate greatness and to bring it down to its own level. Let us,

rather, recall the fine expression of Goethe, that there is no remedy

but Love against great superiorities of others. We may seek to rob

men's great actions of their grandeur, by the insinuation of hypocrisy;

but, though it is possible that men in an instance now and then may

dissemble and disguise a good deal, they cannot conceal the whole of

their inner self, which infallibly betrays itself in the _decursus

vitae._ Even here it is true that a man is nothing but the series of

his actions.

What is called the 'pragmatic' writing of history has in modern times

frequently sinned in its treatment of great historical characters, and

defaced and tarnished the true conception of them by this fallacious

separation of the outward from the inward. Not content with telling

the unvarnished tale of the great acts which have been wrought by

the heroes of the world's history, and with acknowledging that their

inward being corresponds with the import of their acts, the pragmatic

historian fancies himself justified and even obliged to trace the

supposed secret motives that lie behind the open facts of the record.

The historian, in that case, is supposed to write with more depth in

proportion as he succeeds in tearing away the aureole from all that

has been heretofore held grand and glorious, and in depressing it, so

far as its origin and proper significance are concerned, to the level

of vulgar mediocrity. To make these pragmatical researches in history

easier, it is usual to recommend the study of psychology, which is

supposed to make us acquainted with the real motives of human actions.

The psychology in question however is only that petty knowledge of

men, which looks away from the essential and permanent in human

nature to fasten its glance on the casual and private features shown

in isolated instincts and passions. A pragmatical psychology ought

at least to leave the historian, who investigates the motives at the

ground of great actions, a choice between the 'substantial' interests

of patriotism, justice, religious truth and the like, on the one hand,

and the subjective and 'formal' interests of vanity, ambition, avarice

and the like, on the other. The latter however are the motives which

must be viewed by the pragmatist as really efficient, otherwise the

assumption of a contrast between the inward (the disposition of the

agent) and the outward (the import of the action) would fall to the

ground. But inward and outward have in truth the same content; and the

right doctrine is the very reverse of this pedantic judicially. If the

heroes of history had been actuated by subjective and formal interests

alone, they would never have accomplished what they have. And if we

have due regard to the unity between the inner and the outer, we must

own that great men willed what they did, and did what they willed.

141.] The empty abstractions, by means of which the one identical

content perforce continues in the two correlatives, suspend themselves

in the immediate transition, the one in the other. The content is

itself nothing but their identity (§ 138): and these abstractions are

the seeming of essence, put as seeming. By the manifestation of force

the inward is put into existence: but this putting is the mediation by

empty abstractions. In its own self the intermediating process vanishes

to the immediacy, in which the inward and the outward are absolutely

identical and their difference is distinctly no more than assumed and

imposed. This identity is Actuality.

C.--ACTUALITY.

142.] Actuality is the unity, become immediate, of essence with

existence, or of inward with outward. The utterance of the actual

is the actual itself: so that in this utterance it remains just as

essential, and only is essential, in so far as it is in immediate

external existence.

We have ere this met Being and Existence as forms of the immediate.

Being is, in general, unreflected immediacy and transition into

another. Existence is immediate unity of being and reflection; hence

appearance: it comes from the ground, and falls to the ground. In

actuality this unity is explicitly put, and the two sides of the

relation identified. Hence the actual is exempted from transition, and

its externality is its energising. In that energising it is reflected

into itself: its existence is only the manifestation of itself, not of

an other.

Actuality and thought (or Idea) are often absurdly opposed. How

commonly we hear people saying that, though no objection can be urged

against the truth and correctness of a certain thought, there is

nothing of the kind to be seen in actuality, or it cannot be actually

carried out! People who use such language only prove that they have

not properly apprehended the nature either of thought or of actuality.

Thought in such a case is, on one hand, the synonym for a subjective

conception, plan, intention or the like, just as actuality, on the

other, is made synonymous with external and sensible existence. This

is all very well in common life, where great laxity is allowed in the

categories and the names given to them: and it may of course happen

that _e.g._ the plan, or so-called idea, say of a certain method of

taxation, is good and advisable in the abstract, but that nothing of

the sort is found in so-called actuality, or could possibly be carried

out under the given conditions. But when the abstract understanding

gets hold of these categories and exaggerates the distinction they

imply into a hard and fast line of contrast, when it tells us that in

this actual world we must knock ideas out of our heads, it is necessary

energetically to protest against these doctrines, alike in the name of

science and of sound reason. For on the one hand Ideas are not confined

to our heads merely, nor is the Idea, upon the whole, so feeble as to

leave the question of its actualisation or non-actualisation dependent

in our will. The Idea is rather the absolutely active as well I as

actual. And on the other hand actuality is not so bad and irrational,

as purblind or wrong-headed and muddle-brained would-be reformers

imagine. So far is actuality, as distinguished from mere appearance,

and primarily presenting a unity of inward and outward, from being in

contrariety with reason, that it is rather thoroughly reasonable, and

everything which is not reasonable must on that very ground cease to

be held actual. The same view may be traced in the usages of educated

speech, which declines to give the name of real poet or real statesman

to a poet or a statesman who can do nothing really meritorious or

reasonable.

In that vulgar conception of actuality which mistakes for it what is

palpable and directly obvious to the senses, we must seek the ground

of a wide-spread prejudice about the relation of the philosophy of

Aristotle to that of Plato. Popular opinion makes the difference to be

as follows. While Plato recognises the idea and only the idea as the

truth, Aristotle, rejecting the idea, keeps to what is actual, and is

on that account to be considered the founder and chief of empiricism.

On this it may be remarked: that although actuality certainly is

the principle of the Aristotelian philosophy, it is not the vulgar

actuality of what is immediately at hand, but the idea as actuality.

Where then lies the controversy of Aristotle against Plato? It lies in

this. Aristotle calls the Platonic idea a mere δίναμις, and establishes

in opposition to Plato that the idea, which both equally recognise to

be the only truth, is essentially to be viewed as an ἐνέργεια, in other

words, as the inward which is quite to the fore, or as the unity of

inner and outer, or as actuality, in the emphatic sense here given to

the word.

143.] Such a concrete category as Actuality includes the

characteristics aforesaid and their difference, and is therefore also

the development of them, in such a way that, as it has them, they are

at the same time plainly understood to be a show, to be assumed or

imposed (§ 141).

(α) Viewed as an identity in general, Actuality is first of all

Possibility--the reflection-into-self which, as in contrast with

the concrete unity of the actual, is taken and made an abstract and

unessential essentiality. Possibility is what is essential to reality,

but in such a way that it is at the same time only a possibility.

It was probably the import of Possibility which induced Kant to regard

it along with necessity and actuality as Modalities, 'since these

categories do not in the least increase the notion as object, but only

express its relation to the faculty of knowledge.' For Possibility is

really the bare abstraction of reflection-into-self,--what was formerly

called the Inward, only that it is now taken to mean the external

inward, lifted out of reality and with the being of a mere supposition,

and is thus, sure enough, supposed only as a bare modality, an

abstraction which comes short, and, in more concrete terms, belongs

only to subjective thought. It is otherwise with Actuality and

Necessity. They are anything but a mere sort and mode for something

else: in fact the very reverse of that. If they are supposed, it is as

the concrete, not merely supposititious, but intrinsically complete.

As Possibility is, in the first instance, the mere form of

identity-with-self (as compared with the concrete which is actual),

the rule for it merely is that a thing must not be self-contradictory.

Thus everything is possible; for an act of abstraction can give any

content this form of identity. Everything however is as impossible as

it is possible. In every content,--which is and must be concrete,--the

speciality of its nature may be viewed as a specialised contrariety

and in that way as a contradiction. Nothing therefore can be more

meaningless than to speak of such possibility and impossibility. In

philosophy, in particular, there should never be a word said of showing

that 'It is possible,' or 'There is still another possibility,' or, to

adopt another phraseology, 'It is conceivable.' The same consideration

should warn the writer of history against employing a category which

has now been explained to be on its own merits untrue: but the subtlety

of the empty understanding finds its chief pleasure in the fantastic

ingenuity of suggesting possibilities and lots of possibilities.

Our picture-thought is at first disposed to see in possibility the

richer and more comprehensive, in actuality the poorer and narrower

category. Everything, it is said, is possible, but everything which

is possible is not on that account actual. In real truth, however, if

we deal with them as thoughts, actuality is the more comprehensive,

because it is the concrete thought which includes possibility as an

abstract element. And that superiority is to some extent expressed

in our ordinary mode of thought when we speak of the possible, in

distinction from the actual, as _only_ possible. Possibility is often

said to consist in a thing's being thinkable. 'Think,' however, in this

use of the word, only means to conceive any content under the form of

an abstract identity. Now every content can be brought under this form,

since nothing is required except to separate it from the relations in

which it stands. Hence any content, however absurd and nonsensical, can

be viewed as possible. It is possible that the moon might fall upon

the earth to-night; for the moon is a body separate from the earth,

and may as well fall down upon it as a stone thrown into the air does.

It is possible that the Sultan may become Pope; for, being a man, he

may be converted to the Christian faith, may become a Catholic priest,

and so on. In language like this about possibilities, it is chiefly

the law of the sufficient ground or reason which is manipulated in the

style already explained. Everything, it is said, is possible, for which

you can state some ground. The less education a man has, or, in other

words, the less he knows of the specific connexions of the objects

to which he directs his observations, the greater is his tendency to

launch out into all sorts of empty possibilities. An instance of this

habit in the political sphere is seen in the pot-house politician.

In practical life too it is no uncommon thing to see ill-will and

indolence slink behind the category of possibility, in order to escape

definite obligations. To such conduct the same remarks apply as were

made in connexion with the law of sufficient ground. Reasonable and

practical men refuse to be imposed upon by the possible, for the simple

ground that it is possible only. They stick to the actual (not meaning

by that word merely whatever immediately is now and here). Many of

the proverbs of common life express the same contempt for what is

abstractly possible. 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.'

After all there is as good reason for taking everything to be

impossible, as to be possible: for every content (a content is always

concrete) includes not only diverse but even opposite characteristics.

Nothing is so impossible, for instance, as this, that I am: for 'I' is

at the same time simple self-relation and, as undoubtedly, relation

to something else. The same may be seen in every other fact in the

natural or spiritual world. Matter, it may be said, is impossible:

for it is the unity of attraction and repulsion. The same is true of

life, law, freedom, and above all, of God Himself, as the true, _e.g._

the triune God,--a notion of God, which the abstract 'Enlightenment'

of Understanding, in conformity with its canons, rejected on the

allegation that it was contradictory in thought. Generally speaking,

it is the empty understanding which haunts these empty forms: and

the business of philosophy in the matter is to show how null and

meaningless they are. Whether a thing is possible or impossible,

depends altogether on the subject-matter: that is, on the sum total of

the elements in actuality, which, as it opens itself out, discloses

itself to be necessity.

144.] (ß) But the Actual in its distinction from possibility (which

is reflection-into-self) is itself only the outward concrete, the

unessential immediate. In other words, to such extent as the actual

is primarily (§ 142) the simple merely immediate unity of Inward

and Outward, it is obviously made an unessential outward, and thus

at the same time (§ 140) it is merely inward, the abstraction of

reflection-into-self. Hence it is itself characterised as a merely

possible. When thus valued at the rate of a mere possibility, the

actual is a Contingent or Accidental, and, conversely,

possibility is mere Accident itself or Chance.

146.] Possibility and Contingency are the two factors of

Actuality,--Inward and Outward, put as mere forms which constitute the

externality of the actual. They have their reflection-into-self on the

body of actual fact, or content, with its intrinsic definiteness which

gives the essential ground of their characterisation. The finitude of

the contingent and the possible lies, therefore, as we now see, in the

distinction of the form-determination from the content: and, therefore,

it depends on the content alone whether anything is contingent and

possible.

As possibility is the mere _inside_ of actuality, it is for that

reason a mere _outside_ actuality, in other words, Contingency. The

contingent, roughly speaking, is what has the ground of its being

not in itself but in somewhat else. Such is the aspect under which

actuality first comes before consciousness, and which is often mistaken

for actuality itself. But the contingent is only one side of the

actual,--the side, namely, of reflection on somewhat else. It is the

actual, in the signification of something merely possible. Accordingly

we consider the contingent to be what may or may not be, what may be

in one way or in another, whose being or not-being, and whose being

on this wise or otherwise, depends not upon itself but on something

else. To overcome this contingency is, roughly speaking, the problem

of science on the one hand; as in the range of practice, on the other,

the end of action is to rise above the contingency of the will, or

above caprice. It has however often happened, most of all in modern

times, that contingency has been unwarrantably elevated, and had a

value attached to it, both in nature and the world of mind, to which

it has no just claim. Frequently Nature--to take it first,--has been

chiefly admired for the richness and variety of its structures. Apart,

however, from what disclosure it contains of the Idea, this richness

gratifies none of the higher interests of reason, and in its vast

variety of structures, organic and inorganic, affords us only the

spectacle of a contingency losing itself in vagueness. At any rate,

the chequered scene presented by the several varieties of animals and

plants, conditioned as it is by outward circumstances,--the complex

changes in the figuration and grouping of clouds, and the like, ought

not to be ranked higher than the equally casual fancies of the mind

which surrenders itself to its own caprices. The wonderment with which

such phenomena are welcomed is a most abstract frame of mind, from

which one should advance to a closer insight into the inner harmony and

uniformity of nature.

Of contingency in respect of the Will it is especially important to

form a proper estimate. The Freedom of the Will is an expression that

often means mere free-choice, or the will in the form of contingency.

Freedom of choice, or the capacity of determining ourselves towards one

thing or another, is undoubtedly a vital element in the will (which in

its very notion is free); but instead of being freedom itself, it is

only in the first instance a freedom in form. The genuinely free will,

which includes free choice as suspended, is conscious to itself that

its content is intrinsically firm and fast, and knows it at the same

time to be thoroughly its own. A will, on the contrary, which remains

standing on the grade of option, even supposing it does decide in

favour of what is in import right and true, is always haunted by the

conceit that it might, if it had so pleased, have decided in favour of

the reverse course. When more narrowly examined, free choice is seen

to be a contradiction, to this extent that its form and content stand

in antithesis. The matter of choice is given, and known as a content

dependent not on the will itself,'but on outward circumstances. In

reference to such a given content, freedom lies only in the form of

choosing, which, as it is only a freedom in form, may consequently be

regarded as freedom only in supposition. On an ultimate analysis it

will be seen that the same outwardness of circumstances, on which is

founded the content that the will finds to its hand, can alone account

for the will giving its decision for the one and not the other of the

two alternatives.

Although contingency, as it has thus been shown, is only one aspect in

the whole of actuality, and therefore not to be mistaken for actuality

itself, it has no less than the rest of the forms of the idea its due

office in the world of objects. This is, in the first place, seen in

Nature. On the surface of Nature, so to speak, Chance ranges unchecked,

and that contingency must simply be recognised, without the pretension

sometimes erroneously ascribed to philosophy, of seeking to find in it

a could-only-be-so-and-not-otherwise. Nor is contingency less visible

in the world of Mind. The will, as we have already remarked, includes

contingency under the shape of option or free-choice, but only as a

vanishing and abrogated element. In respect of Mind and its works,

just as in the case of Nature, we must guard against being so far

misled by a well-meant endeavour after rational knowledge, as to try

to exhibit the necessity of phenomena which are marked by a decided

contingency, or, as the phrase is, to construe them _a priori._ Thus

in language (although it be, as it were, the body of thought) Chance

still unquestionably plays a decided part; and the same is true of the

creations of law, of art, &c. The problem of science, and especially of

philosophy, undoubtedly consists in eliciting the necessity concealed

under the semblance of contingency. That however is far from meaning

that the contingent belongs to our subjective conception alone, and

must therefore be simply set aside, if we wish to get at the truth.

All scientific researches which pursue this tendency exclusively,

lay themselves fairly open to the charge of mere jugglery and an

over-strained precisianism.

146.] When more closely examined, what the aforesaid outward side

of actuality implies is this. Contingency, which is actuality

in its immediacy, is the self-identical, essentially only as a

supposition which is no sooner made than it is revoked and leaves

an existent externality. In this way, the external contingency is

something pre-supposed, the immediate existence of which is at the

same time a possibility, and has the vocation to be suspended, to

be the possibility of something else. Now this possibility is the

Condition.

The Contingent, as the immediate actuality, is at the same time

the possibility of somewhat else,--no longer however that abstract

possibility which we had at first, but the possibility which _is._ And

a possibility existent is a Condition. By the Condition of a thing

we mean first, an existence, in short an immediate, and secondly

the vocation of this immediate to be suspended and subserve the

actualising of something else.--Immediate actuality is in general

as such never what it ought to be; it is a finite actuality with an

inherent flaw, and its vocation is to be consumed. But the other

aspect of actuality is its essentiality. This is primarily the inside,

which as a mere possibility is no less destined to be suspended.

Possibility thus suspended is the issuing of a new actuality, of which

the first immediate actuality was the pre-supposition. Here we see

the alternation which is involved in the notion of a Condition. The

Conditions of a thing seem at first sight to involve no bias anyway.

Really however an immediate actuality of this kind includes in it

the germ of something else altogether. At first this something else

is only a possibility: but the form of possibility is soon suspended

and translated into actuality. This new actuality thus issuing is the

very inside of the immediate actuality which it uses up. Thus there

comes into being quite an other shape of things, and yet itis not an

other: for the first actuality is only put as what it in essence was.

The conditions which are sacrificed, which fall to the ground and are

spent, only unite with themselves in the other actuality. Such in

general is the nature of the process of actuality. The actual is no

mere case of immediate Being, but, as essential Being, a suspension of

its own immediacy, and thereby mediating itself with itself.

147.] (γ) When this externality (of actuality) is thus developed into

a circle of the two categories of possibility and immediate actuality,

showing the intermediation of the one by the other, it is what is

called Real Possibility. Being such a circle, further, it

is the totality, and thus the content, the actual fact or affair in

its all-round definiteness. Whilst in like manner, if we look at the

distinction between the two characteristics in this unity, it realises

the concrete totality of the form, the immediate self-translation

of inner into outer, and of outer into inner. This self-movement of

the form is Activity, carrying into effect the fact or affair as a

_real_ ground which is self-suspended to actuality, and carrying into

effect the contingent actuality, the conditions; _i.e._ it is their

reflection-in-self, and their self-suspension to an other actuality,

the actuality of the actual fact. If all the conditions are at hand,

the fact (event) _must_ be actual; and the fact itself is one of the

conditions: for being in the first place only inner, it is at first

itself only pre-supposed. Developed actuality, as the coincident

alternation of inner and outer, the alternation of their opposite

motions combined into a single motion, is Necessity.

Necessity has been defined, and rightly so, as the union of possibility

and actuality. This mode of expression, however, gives a superficial

and therefore unintelligible description of the very difficult notion

of necessity. It is difficult because it is the notion itself, only

that its stages or factors are still as actualities, which are yet at

the same time to be viewed as forms only, collapsing and transient. In

the two following paragraphs therefore an exposition of the factors

which constitute necessity must be given at greater length.

* * * * *

When anything is said to be necessary, the first question we ask is,

Why? Anything necessary accordingly comes before us as something due to

a supposition, the result of certain antecedents. If we go no further

than mere derivation from antecedents however, we have not gained a

complete notion of what necessity means. What is merely derivative,

is what it is, not through itself, but through something else; and in

this way it too is merely contingent. What is necessary, on the other

hand, we would have be what it is through itself; and thus, although

derivative, it must still contain the antecedent whence it is derived

as a vanishing element in itself. Hence we say of what is necessary,

'It is.' We thus hold it to be simple self-relation, in which all

dependence on something else is removed.

Necessity is often said to be blind. If that means that in the process

of necessity the End or final cause is not explicitly and overtly

present, the statement is correct. The process of necessity begins

with the existence of scattered circumstances which appear to have no

inter-connexion and no concern one with another. These circumstances

are an immediate actuality which collapses, and out of this negation

a new actuality proceeds. Here we have a content which in point of

form is doubled, once as content of the final realised fact, and once

as content of the scattered circumstances which appear as if they

were positive, and make themselves at first felt in that character.

The latter content is in itself nought and is accordingly inverted

into its negative, thus becoming content of the realised fact. The

immediate circumstances fall to the ground as conditions, but are at

the same time retained as content of the ultimate reality. From such

circumstances and conditions there has, as we say, proceeded quite

another thing, and it is for that reason that we call this process of

necessity blind. If on the contrary we consider teleological action, we

have in the end of action a content which is already fore-known. This

activity therefore is not blind but seeing. To say that the world is

ruled by Providence implies that design, as what has been absolutely

pre-determined, is the active principle, so that the issue corresponds

to what has been fore-known and fore-willed.

The theory however which regards the world as determined through

necessity and the belief in a divine providence are by no means

mutually excluding points of view. The intellectual principle

underlying the idea of divine providence will hereafter be shown to be

the notion. But the notion is the truth of necessity, which it contains

in suspension in itself; just as, conversely, necessity is the notion

implicit. Necessity is blind only so long as it is not understood.

There is nothing therefore more mistaken than the charge of blind

fatalism made against the Philosophy of History, when it takes for its

problem to understand the necessity of every event. The philosophy of

history rightly understood takes the rank of a Théodicée; and those,

who fancy they honour Divine Providence by excluding necessity from

it, are really degrading it by this exclusiveness to a blind and

irrational caprice. In the simple language of the religious mind which

speaks of God's eternal and immutable decrees, there is implied an

express recognition that necessity forms part of the essence of God. In

his difference from God, man, with his own private opinion and will,

follows the call of caprice and arbitrary humour, and thus often finds

his acts turn out something quite different from what he had meant and

willed. But God knows what He wills, is determined in His eternal will

neither by accident from within nor from without, and what He wills He

also accomplishes, irresistibly.

Necessity gives a point of view which has important bearings upon our

sentiments and behaviour. When we look upon events as necessary, our

situation seems at first sight to lack freedom completely. In the

creed of the ancients, as we know, necessity figured as Destiny. The

modern point of view, on the contrary, is that of Consolation. And

Consolation means that, if we renounce our aims and interests, we do so

only in prospect of receiving compensation. Destiny, on the contrary,

leaves no room for Consolation. But a close examination of the ancient

feeling about destiny, will not by any means reveal a sense of bondage

to its power. Rather the reverse. This will clearly appear, if we

remember, that the sense of bondage springs from inability to surmount

the antithesis, and from looking at what _is,_ and what happens, as

contradictory to what _ought_ to be and happen. In the ancient mind the

feeling was more of the following kind: Because such a thing is, it

is, and as it is, so ought it to be. Here there is no contrast to be

seen, and therefore no sense of bondage, no pain, and no sorrow. True,

indeed, as already remarked, this attitude towards destiny is void of

consolation. But then, on the other hand, it is a frame of mind which

does not need consolation, so long as personal subjectivity has not

acquired its infinite significance. It is this point on which special

stress should be laid in comparing the ancient sentiment with that of

the modern and Christian world.

By Subjectivity, however, we may understand, in the first place, only

the natural and finite subjectivity, with its contingent and arbitrary

content of private interests and inclinations,--all, in short, that

we call person as distinguished from thing: taking 'thing' in the

emphatic sense of the word (in which we use the (correct) expression

that it is a question of _things_ and not of _persons)._ In this sense

of sub-activity we cannot help admiring the tranquil resignation of

the ancients to destiny, and feeling that it is a much higher and

worthier mood than that of the moderns, who obstinately pursue their

subjective aims, and when they find themselves constrained to resign

the hope of reaching them, console themselves with the prospect of a

reward in some other shape. But the term subjectivity is not to be

confined merely to the bad and finite kind of it which is contrasted

with the thing (fact). In its truth subjectivity is immanent in the

fact, and as a subjectivity thus infinite is the very truth of the

fact. Thus regarded, the doctrine of consolation receives a newer and

a higher significance. It is in this sense that the Christian religion

is to be regarded as the religion of consolation, and even of absolute

consolation. Christianity, we know, teaches that God wishes all men

to be saved. That teaching declares that subjectivity has an infinite

value. And that consoling power of Christianity just lies in the fact

that God Himself is in it known as the absolute subjectivity, so that,

inasmuch as subjectivity involves the element of particularity, _our_

particular personality too is recognised not merely as something to be

solely and simply nullified, but as at the same time something to be

preserved. The gods of the ancient world were also, it is true, looked

upon as personal; but the personality of a Zeus and an Apollo is not

a real personality: it is only a figure in the mind. In other words,

these gods are mere personifications, which, being such, do not know

themselves, and are only known. An evidence of this defect and this

powerlessness of the old gods is found even in the religious beliefs

of antiquity. In the ancient creeds not only men, but even gods,

were represented as subject to destiny (πεπρωμένον or εἱμαρμένη), a

destiny which we must conceive as necessity not unveiled, and thus as

something wholly impersonal, selfless, and blind. On the other hand,

the Christian God is God not known merely, but also self-knowing; He is

a personality not merely figured in our minds, but rather absolutely

actual.

We must refer to the Philosophy of Religion for a further discussion of

the points here touched. But we may note in passing how important it

is for any man to meet everything that befalls him with the spirit of

the old proverb which describes each man as the architect of his own

fortune. That means that it is only himself after all of which a man

has the usufruct. The other way would be to lay the blame of whatever

we experience upon other men, upon unfavourable circumstances, and the

like. And this is a fresh example of the language of unfreedom, and at

the same time the spring of discontent. If man saw, on the contrary,

that whatever happens to him is only the outcome of himself, and that

he only bears his own guilt, he would stand free, and in everything

that came upon him would have the consciousness that he suffered no

wrong. A man who lives in dispeace with himself and his lot, commits

much that is perverse and amiss, for no other reason than because of

the false opinion that he is wronged by others. No doubt too there is a

great deal of chance in what befalls us. But the chance has its root in

the 'natural' man. So long however as a man is otherwise conscious that

he is free, his harmony of soul and peace of mind will not be destroyed

by the disagreeables that befall him. It is their view of necessity,

therefore, which is at the root of the content and discontent of men,

and which in that way determines their destiny itself.

148.] Among the three elements in the process of necessity--the

Condition, the Fact, and the Activity--

a. The Condition is (α) what is pre-supposed or ante-stated, _e.g._

it is not only supposed or stated, and so only a correlative to the

fact, but also prior, and so independent, a contingent and external

circumstance which exists without respect to the fact. While thus

contingent, however, this pre-supposed or ante-stated term, in respect

withal of the fact, which is the totality, is a complete circle of

conditions, (ß) The conditions are passive, are used as materials for

the fact, into the content of which they thus enter. They are likewise

intrinsically conformable to this content, and already contain its

whole characteristic.

b. The Fact is also (α) something pre-supposed or ante-stated, _i.e._

it is at first, and as supposed, only inner and possible, and also,

being prior, an independent content by itself, (ß) By using up the

conditions, it receives its external existence, the realisation of

the articles of its content, which reciprocally correspond to the

conditions, so that whilst it presents itself out of these as the fact,

it also proceeds from them.

c. The Activity similarly has (α) an independent existence of its own

(as a man, a character), and at the same time it is possible only

where the conditions are and the fact, (ß) It is the movement which

translates the conditions into fact, and the latter into the former as

the side of existence, or rather the movement which educes the fact

from the conditions in which it is potentially present, and which gives

existence to the fact by abolishing the existence possessed by the

conditions.

In so far as these three elements stand to each other in the shape

of independent existences, this process has the aspect of an outward

necessity. Outward necessity has a limited content for its fact. For

the fact is this whole, in phase of singleness. But since in its form

this whole is external to itself, it is self-externalised even in its

own self and in its content, and this externality, attaching to the

fact, is a limit of its content.

149.] Necessity, then, is potentially the one essence, self-same but

now full of content, in the reflected light of which its distinctions

take the form of independent realities. This self-sameness is at the

same time, as absolute form, the activity which reduces into dependency

and mediates into immediacy.--Whatever is necessary is through an

other, which is broken up into the mediating ground (the Fact and

the Activity) and an immediate actuality or accidental circumstance,

which is at the same time a Condition. The necessary, being through

an other, is not in and for itself: hypothetical, it is a mere result

of assumption. But this intermediation is just as immediately however

the abrogation of itself. The ground and contingent condition is

translated into immediacy, by which that dependency is now lifted up

into actuality, and the fact has closed with itself. In this return

to itself the necessary simply and positively _is,_ as unconditioned

actuality. The necessary is so, mediated through a circle of

circumstances: it is so, because the circumstances are so, and at the

same time it is so, unmediated: it is so, because it is.

(a) _Relationship of Substantiality._

150.] The necessary is in itself an absolute correlation of elements,

_i.e._ the process developed (in the preceding paragraphs), in which

the correlation also suspends itself to absolute identity.

In its immediate form it is the relationship of Substance and Accident.

The absolute self-identity of this relationship is Substance as such,

which as necessity gives the negative to this form of inwardness, and

thus invests itself with actuality, but which also gives the negative

to this outward thing. In this negativity, the actual, as immediate,

is only an accidental which through this bare possibility passes over

into another actuality. This transition is the identity of substance,

regarded as form-activity (§§ 148, 149).

151.] Substance is accordingly the totality of the Accidents,

revealing itself in them as their absolute negativity, (that is to

say, as absolute power,) and at the same time as the wealth of all

content. This content however is nothing but that very revelation,

since the character (being reflected in itself to make content) is

only a passing stage of the form which passes away in the power of

substance. Substantiality is the absolute form-activity and the power

of necessity: all content is but a vanishing element which merely

belongs to this process, where there is an absolute revulsion of form

and content into one another.

* * * * *

In the history of philosophy we meet with Substance as the principle

of Spinoza's system. On the import and value of that much-praised and

no less decried philosophy there has been great misunderstanding and

a deal of talking since the days of Spinoza. The atheism and, as a

further charge, the pantheism of the system has formed the commonest

ground of accusation. These cries arise because of Spinoza's conception

of God as substance, and substance only. What we are to think of this

charge follows, in the first instance, from the place which substance

takes in the system of the logical idea. Though an essential stage in

the evolution of the idea, substance is not the same with absolute

Idea, but the idea under the still limited form of necessity. It is

true that God is necessity, or, as we may also put it, that He is the

absolute Thing: He is however no less the absolute Person. That He is

the absolute Person however is a point which the philosophy of Spinoza

never reached: and on that side it falls short of the true notion of

God which forms the content of religious consciousness in Christianity.

Spinoza was by descent a Jew; and it is upon the whole the Oriental way

of seeing things, according to which the nature of the finite world

seems frail and transient, that has found its intellectual expression

in his system. This Oriental view of the unity of substance certainly

gives the basis for all real further development. Still it is not the

final idea. It is marked by the absence of the principle of the Western

World, the principle of individuality, which first appeared under a

philosophic shape, contemporaneously with Spinoza, in the Monadology of

Leibnitz.

From this point we glance back to the alleged atheism of Spinoza. The

charge will be seen to be unfounded if we remember that his system,

instead of denying God, rather recognises that He alone really is.

Nor can it be maintained that the God of Spinoza, although he is

described as alone true, is not the true God, and therefore as good as

no God. If that were a just charge, it would only prove that all other

systems, where speculation has not gone beyond a subordinate stage

of the idea,--that the Jews and Mohammedans who know God only as the

Lord,--and that even the many Christians for whom God is merely the

most high, unknowable, and transcendent being, are as much atheists as

Spinoza. The so-called atheism of Spinoza is merely an exaggeration of

the fact that he defrauds the principle of difference or finitude of

its due. Hence his system, as it holds that there is properly speaking

no world, at any rate that the world has no positive being, should

rather be styled Acosmism, These considerations will also show what is

to be said of the charge of Pantheism. If Pantheism means, as it often

does, the doctrine which takes finite things in their finitude and in

the complex of them to be God, we must acquit the system of Spinoza of

the crime of Pantheism. For in that system, finite things and the world

as a whole are denied all truth. On the other hand, the philosophy

which is Acosmism is for that reason certainly pantheistic.

The shortcoming thus acknowledged to attach to the content turns out

at the same time to be a shortcoming in respect of form. Spinoza puts

substance at the head of his system, and defines it to be the unity

of thought and extension, without demonstrating how he gets to this

distinction, or how he traces it back to the unity of substance. The

further treatment of the subject proceeds in what is called the

mathematical method. Definitions and axioms are first laid down: after

them comes a series of theorems, which are proved by an analytical

reduction of them to these unproved postulates. Although the system

of Spinoza, and that even by those who altogether reject its contents

and results, is praised for the strict sequence of its method, such

unqualified praise of the form is as little justified as an unqualified

rejection of the content. The defect of the content is that the form

is not known as immanent in it, and therefore only approaches it as an

outer and subjective form. As intuitively accepted by Spinoza without a

previous mediation by dialectic, Substance, as the universal negative

power, is as it were a dark shapeless abyss which engulfs all definite

content as radically null, and produces from itself nothing that has a

positive subsistence of its own.

152.] At the stage, where substance, as absolute power, is the

self-relating power (itself a merely inner possibility) which thus

determines itself to accidentality,--from which power the externality

it thereby creates is distinguished--necessity is a correlation

strictly so called, just as in the first form of necessity, it is

substance. This is the correlation of Causality.

(b) _Relationship of Causality._

153.] Substance is Cause, in so far as substance reflects into

self as against its passage into accidentality and so stands as the

_primary_ fact, but again no less suspends this reflection-into-self

(its bare possibility), lays itself down as the negative of itself, and

thus produces an Effect, an actuality, which, though so far only

assumed as a sequence, is through the process that effectuates it at

the same time necessary.

As primary fact, the cause is qualified as having absolute independence

and a subsistence maintained in face of the effect: but in the

necessity, whose identity constitutes that primariness itself, it

is wholly passed into the effect. So far again as we can speak of a

definite content, there is no content in the effect that is not in

the cause. That identity in fact is the absolute content itself: but

it is no less also the form-characteristic. The primariness of the

cause is suspended in the effect in which the cause makes itself a

dependent being. The cause however does not for that reason vanish and

leave the effect to be alone actual. For this dependency is in like

manner directly suspended, and is rather the reflection of the cause

in itself, its primariness: in short, it is in the effect that the

cause first becomes actual and a cause. The cause consequently is in

its full truth _causa sui._--Jacobi, sticking to the partial conception

of mediation (in his Letters on Spinoza, second edit. p. 416), has

treated the _causa sui_ (and the _effectus sui_ is the same), which is

the absolute truth of the cause, as a mere formalism. He has also made

the remark that God ought to be defined not as the ground of things,

but essentially as cause. A more thorough consideration of the nature

of cause would have shown that Jacobi did not by this means gain what

he intended. Even in the finite cause and its conception we can see

this identity between cause and effect in point of content. The rain

(the cause) and the wet (the effect) are the self-same existing water.

In point of form the cause (rain) is dissipated or lost in the effect

(wet): but in that case the result can no longer be described as

effect; for without the cause it is nothing, and we should have only

the unrelated wet left.

In the common acceptation of the causal relation the cause is finite,

to such extent as its content is so (as is also the case with finite

substance), and so far as cause and effect are conceived as two several

independent existences; which they are, however, only when we leave

the causal relation out of sight. In the finite sphere we never get

over the difference of the form-characteristics in their relation: and

hence we turn the matter round and define the cause also as something

dependent or as an effect. This again has another cause, and thus there

grows up a progress from effects to causes _ad infinitum._ There is a

descending progress too: the effect, looked at in its identity with the

cause, is itself defined as a cause, and at the same time as another

cause, which again has other effects, and so on for ever.

The way understanding bristles up against the idea of substance is

equalled by its readiness to use the relation of cause and effect.

Whenever it is proposed to view any sum of fact as necessary, it

is especially the relation of causality to which the reflective

understanding makes a point of tracing it back. Now, although this

relation does undoubtedly belong to necessity, it forms only one aspect

in the process of that category. That process equally requires the

suspension of the mediation involved in causality and the exhibition

of it as simple self-relation. If we stick to causality as such, we

have it not in its truth. Such a causality is merely finite, and its

finitude lies in retaining the distinction between cause and effect

unassimilated. But these two terms, if they are distinct, are also

identical. Even in ordinary consciousness that identity may be found.

We say that a cause is a cause, only when it has an effect, and _vice

versâ._ Both cause and effect are thus one and the same content: and

the distinction between them is primarily only that the one lays down,

and the other is laid down. This formal difference however again

suspends itself, because the cause is not only a cause of something

else, but also a cause of itself; while the effect is not only an

effect of something else, but also an effect of itself. The finitude

of things consists accordingly in this. While cause and effect are in

their notion identical, the two forms present themselves severed so

that, though the cause is also an effect, and the effect also a cause,

the cause is not an effect in the same connexion as it is a cause, nor

the effect a cause in the same connexion as it is an effect. This

again gives the infinite progress, in the shape of an endless series

of causes, which shows itself at the same time as an endless series of

effects.

154.] The effect is different from the cause. The former as such has

a being dependent on the latter. But such a dependence is likewise

reflection-into-self and immediacy: and the action of the cause, as it

constitutes the effect, is at the same time the pre-constitution of

the effect, so long as effect is kept separate from cause. There is

thus already in existence another substance on which the effect takes

place. As immediate, this substance is not a self-related negativity

and _active,_ but _passive._ Yet it is a substance, and it is therefore

active also: it therefore suspends the immediacy it was originally put

forward with, and the effect which was put into it: it reacts, _e.g._

suspends the activity of the first substance. But this first substance

also in the same way sets aside its own immediacy, or the effect which

is put into it; it thus suspends the activity of the other substance

and reacts. In this manner causality passes into the relation of

Action and Reaction, or Reciprocity.

In Reciprocity, although causality is not yet invested with its true

characteristic, the rectilinear movement out from causes to effects,

and from effects to causes, is bent round and back into itself, and

thus the progress _ad infinitum_ of causes and effects is, as a

progress, really and truly suspended. This bend, which transforms, the

infinite progression into a self-contained relationship, is here as

always the plain reflection that in the above meaningless repetition

there is only one and the same thing, viz. one cause and another, and

their connexion with one another. Reciprocity--which is the development

of this relation-itself however only distinguishes turn and turn

about (--not causes, but) factors of causation, in each of which--just

because they are inseparable (on the principle of the identity that the

cause is cause in the effect, and _vice versâ_)--the other factor is

also equally supposed.

(c) _Reciprocity or Action and Reaction._

155.] The characteristics which in Reciprocal Action are retained as

distinct are (α) potentially the same. The one side is a cause, is

primary, active, passive, &c, just as the other is. Similarly the

pre-supposition of another side and the action upon it, the immediate

primariness and the dependence produced by the alternation, are one and

the same on both sides. The cause assumed to be first is on account

of its immediacy passive, a dependent being, and an effect. The

distinction of the causes spoken of as two is accordingly void: and

properly speaking there is only one cause, which, while it suspends

itself (as substance) in its effect, also rises in this operation only

to independent existence as a cause.

156.] But this unity of the double cause is also (β) actual. All this

alternation is properly the cause in act of constituting itself and in

such constitution lies its being. The nullity of the distinctions is

not only potential, or a reflection of ours (§ 155). Reciprocal action

just means that each characteristic we impose is also to be suspended

and inverted into its opposite, and that in this way the essential

nullity of the 'moments' is explicitly stated. An effect is introduced

into the primariness; in other words, the primariness is abolished: the

action of a cause becomes reaction, and so on.

Reciprocal action realises the causal relation in its complete

development. It is this relation, therefore, in which reflection

usually takes shelter when the conviction grows that things can no

longer be studied satisfactorily from a causal point of view, on

account of the infinite progress already spoken of. Thus in historical

research the question may be raised in a first form, whether the

character and manners of a nation are the cause of its constitution and

its laws, or if they are not rather the effect. Then, as the second

step, the character and manners on one side and the constitution and

laws on the other are conceived on the principle of reciprocity: and

in that case the cause in the same connexion as it is a cause will at

the same time be an effect, and _vice versâ._ The same thing is done

in the study of Nature, and especially of living organisms. There

the several organs and functions are similarly seen to stand to each

other in the relation of reciprocity. Reciprocity is undoubtedly the

proximate truth of the relation of cause and effect, and stands, so

to say, on the threshold of the notion; but on that very ground,

supposing that our aim is a thoroughly comprehensive idea, we should

not rest content with applying this relation. If we get no further than

studying a given content under the point of view of reciprocity, we are

taking up an attitude which leaves matters utterly incomprehensible.

We are left with a mere dry fact; and the call for mediation, which

is the chief motive in applying the relation of causality, is still

unanswered. And it we look more narrowly into the dissatisfaction

felt in applying the relation of reciprocity, we shall see that it

consists in the circumstance, that this relation, instead of being

treated as an equivalent for the notion, ought, first of all, to be

known and understood in its own nature. And to understand the relation

of action and reaction we must not let the two sides rest in their

state of mere given facts, but recognise them, as has been shown in

the two paragraphs preceding, for factors of a third and higher, which

is the notion and nothing else. To make, for example, the manners of

the Spartans the cause of their constitution and their constitution

conversely the cause of their manners, may no doubt be in a way

correct. But, as we have comprehended neither the manners nor the

constitution of the nation, the result of such reflections can never

be final or satisfactory. The satisfactory point will be reached only

when these two, as well as all other, special aspects of Spartan life

and Spartan history are seen to be founded in this notion.

157.] This pure self-reciprocation is therefore Necessity unveiled

or realised. The link of necessity _quâ_ necessity is identity, as

still inward and concealed, because it is the identity of what are

esteemed actual things, although their very self-subsistence is bound

to be necessity. The circulation of substance through causality

and reciprocity therefore only expressly makes out or states that

self-subsistence is the infinite negative self-relation--a relation

_negative,_ in general, for in it the act of distinguishing and

intermediating becomes a primariness of actual things independent

one against the other,--and _infinite self-relation,_ because their

independence only lies in their identity.

158.] This truth of necessity, therefore, is _Freedom:_ and the

truth of substance is the Notion,--an independence which, though

self-repulsive into distinct independent elements, yet in that

repulsion is self-identical, and in the movement of reciprocity still

at home and conversant only with itself.

* * * * *

Necessity is often called hard, and rightly so, if we keep only to

necessity as such, _i.e._ to its immediate shape. Here we have,

first of all, some state or, generally speaking, fact, possessing an

independent subsistence: and necessity primarily implies that there

falls upon such a fact something else by which it is brought low.

This is what is hard and sad in necessity immediate or abstract. The

identity of the two things, which necessity presents as bound to each

other and thus bereft of their independence, is at first only inward,

and therefore has no existence for those under the yoke of necessity.

Freedom too from this point of view is only abstract, and is preserved

only by renouncing all that we immediately are and have. But, as we

have seen already, the process of necessity is so directed that it

overcomes the rigid externality which it first had and reveals its

inward nature. It then appears that the members, linked to one another,

are not really foreign to each other, but only elements of one whole,

each of them, in its connexion with the other, being, as it were, at

home, and combining with itself. In this way necessity is transfigured

into freedom,--not the freedom that consists in abstract negation,

but freedom concrete and positive. From which we may learn what a

mistake it is to regard freedom and necessity as mutually exclusive.

Necessity indeed _quâ_ necessity is far from being freedom: yet

freedom pre-supposes necessity, and contains it as an unsubstantial

element in itself. A good man is aware that the tenor of his conduct

is essentially obligatory and necessary. But this consciousness is

so far from making any abatement from his freedom, that without it

real and reasonable freedom could not be distinguished from arbitrary

choice,--a freedom which has no reality and is merely potential. A

criminal, when punished, may look upon his punishment as a restriction

of his freedom. Really the punishment is not foreign constraint to

which he is subjected, but the manifestation of his own act: and if he

recognises this, he comports himself as a free man. In short, man is

most independent when he knows himself to be determined by the absolute

idea throughout. It was this phase of mind and conduct which Spinoza

called _Amor intellectualis Dei._

159.] Thus the Notion is the truth of Being and Essence, inasmuch as

the shining or show of self-reflection is itself at the same time

independent immediacy, and this being of a different actuality is

immediately only a shining or show on itself.

The Notion has exhibited itself as the truth of Being and Essence, as

the ground to which the regress of both leads. Conversely it has been

developed out of being as its ground. The former aspect of the advance

may be regarded as a concentration of being into its depth, thereby

disclosing its inner nature: the latter aspect as an issuing of the

more perfect from the less perfect. When such development is viewed on

the latter side only, it does prejudice to the method of philosophy.

The special meaning which these superficial thoughts of more imperfect

and more perfect have in this place is to indicate the distinction of

being, as an immediate unity with itself, from the notion, as free

mediation with itself. Since being has shown that it is an element in

the notion, the latter has thus exhibited itself as the truth of being.

As this its reflection in itself and as an absorption of the mediation,

the notion is the pre-supposition of the immediate--a pre-supposition

which is identical with the return to self; and in this identity lie

freedom and the notion. If the partial element therefore be called the

imperfect, then the notion, or the perfect, is certainly a development

from the imperfect; since its very nature is thus to suspend its

pre-supposition. At the same time it is the notion alone which, in the

act of supposing itself, makes its pre-supposition; as has been made

apparent in causality in general and especially in reciprocal action.

Thus in reference to Being and Essence the Notion is defined as Essence

reverted to the simple immediacy of Being,--the shining or show of

Essence thereby having actuality, and its actuality being at the same

time a free shining or show in itself. In this manner the notion has

being as its simple self-relation, or as the immediacy of its immanent

unity. Being is so poor a category that it is the least thing which can

be shown to be found in the notion.

The passage from necessity to freedom, or from actuality into the

notion, is the very hardest, because it proposes that independent

actuality shall be thought as having all its substantiality in the

passing over and identity with the other independent actuality. The

notion, too, is extremely hard, because it is itself just this very

identity. But the actual substance as such, the cause, which in its

exclusiveness resists all invasion, is _ipso facto_ subjected to

necessity or the destiny of passing into dependency: and it is this

subjection rather where the chief hardness lies. To think necessity, on

the contrary, rather tends to melt that hardness. For thinking means

that, in the other, one meets with one's self.--It means a liberation,

which is not the flight of abstraction, but consists in that which is

actual having itself not as something else, but as its own being and

creation, in the other actuality with which it is bound up by the force

of necessity. As existing in an individual form, this liberation is

called I: as developed to its totality, it is free Spirit; as feeling,

it is Love; and as enjoyment, it is Blessedness.--The great vision

of substance in Spinoza is only a potential liberation from finite

exclusiveness and egoism: but the notion itself realises for its own

both the power of necessity and actual freedom.

* * * * *

When, as now, the notion is called the truth of Being and Essence,

we must expect to be asked, why we do not begin with the notion? The

answer is that, where knowledge by thought is our aim, we cannot begin

with the truth, because the truth, when it forms the beginning, must

rest on mere assertion. The truth when it is thought must as such

verify itself to thought. If the notion were put at the head of Logic,

and defined, quite correctly in point of content, as the unity of

Being and Essence, the following question would come up: What are we

to think under the terms 'Being' and 'Essence,' and how do they come

to be embraced in the unity of the Notion? But if we answered these

questions, then our beginning with the notion would be merely nominal.

The real start would be made with Being, as we have here done: with

this difference, that the characteristics of Being as well as those

of Essence would have to be accepted uncritically from figurate

conception, whereas we have observed Being and Essence in their own

dialectical development and learnt how they lose themselves in the

unity of the notion.

[1] Compare Goethe's indignant outcry--'To Natural Science,' vol. i.

pt. 3:

Das hör' ich sechzig Jahre wiederholen,

Und fluche drauf, aber verstohlen,--

Natur hat weder Kern noch Schaale,

Alles ist sie mit einem Male.