Being is the notion implicit only: its special forms have the predicate 'is'; when they are distinguished they are each of them an 'other': and the shape which dialectic takes in them, i.e. their further specialisation, is at once a forth-putting and in that way a disengaging of the notion implicit in being; and at the same time the withdrawing of being inwards, its sinking deeper into itself. Thus the explication of the notion in the sphere of being does two things: it brings out the totality of being, and it abolishes the immediacy of being, or the form of being as such.
Being itself and the special sub-categories of it which follow,
as well as those of logic in general, may be looked upon as definitions
of the
Absolute
, or metaphysical definitions
of God: at least the first and third categories in every
triad
may - the first, where the thought-form of the triad is formulated
in its simplicity, and the third, being the return from differentiation
to a simple self-reference. For a
metaphysical definition of God
is the expression of his nature in thoughts as such: and logic
embraces all thoughts so long as they continue in the thought-form.
The second sub-category in each triad, where the grade of thought
is in its differentiation, gives, on the other hand, a definition
of the finite.
The objection to the form of definition is that
it implies a something in the mind's eye on which these predicates
may fasten. Thus even the Absolute (though it purports to express
God
in the style and character of thought)
in comparison with
its
predicate
(which really and distinctly
expresses in thought what the subject does not) is as yet only
an inchoate pretended thought - the indeterminate subject of predicates
yet to come. The thought, which is here the matter of sole importance,
is contained only in the predicate: and hence the propositional
form, like the said subject, viz., the Absolute, is a mere superfluity.
Each of the three spheres of the logical idea proves to be a systematic whole of thought-terms, and a phase of the Absolute. This is the case with Being, containing the three grades of quality, quantity and measure .
Quality is, in the first place, the character identical with being: so identical that a thing ceases to be what it is, if it loses its quality. Quantity, on the contrary, is the character external to being, and does not affect the being at all. Thus, e.g. a house remains what it is, whether it be greater or smaller; and red remains red, whether it be brighter or darker.
The three forms of being here mentioned, just because they are the first, are also the poorest, i.e. the most abstract . Immediate (sensible) consciousness, in so far as it simultaneously includes an intellectual element, is especially restricted to the abstract categories of quality and quantity.
The sensuous consciousness is in ordinary estimation the most concrete and thus also the richest; but that is true only as regards materials, whereas, in reference to the thought it contains, it is really the poorest and most abstract.
Pure Being makes
the beginning
:
because it is on the one hand
pure thought
, and on the other immediacy
itself, simple and
indeterminate
; and
the first beginning cannot be
mediated
by anything, or be further determined.
All doubts and admonitions, which might be brought
against beginning
the science with abstract empty being, will disappear if we only
perceive what a beginning naturally implies. It is possible to
define being as 'I = I', as 'Absolute Indifference' or Identity,
and so on. Where it is felt necessary to begin either with what
is absolutely certain, i.e. certainty of oneself, or with a definition
or
intuition
of the
absolute truth
, these and other forms of the
kind may be looked on as if they must be the first. But each of
these forms contains a mediation, and hence cannot be the real
first: for all mediation implies advance made from a first on
to a second, and proceeding from something different. If I = I,
or even the intellectual intuition, are really taken to mean no
more than the first, they are in this mere immediacy identical
with being: while conversely, pure being, if abstract no longer,
but including in it mediation, is pure thought or intuition.
If we enunciate Being as a
predicate
of the Absolute, we get the first definition of the latter. The
Absolute is Being. This is (in thought) the absolutely initial
definition, the most abstract and stinted. It is the definition
given by the
Eleatics
, but at the same
time is also the well-known definition of God as the sum of all
realities. It means, in short, that we are to set aside that limitation
which is in every reality, so that God shall be only the real
in all
reality
, the superlatively real. Or, if we reject reality,
as implying a reflection, we get a more immediate or unreflected
statement of the same thing, when Jacobi says that the God of
Spinoza
is the principium of
being in all existence.
When thinking is to begin , we have nothing but thought in its merest indeterminate : for we cannot determine unless there is both one and another: and yet in the beginning there is yet no other. The indeterminate, as we have it, is the blank we begin with, not a featurelessness reached by abstraction, not the elimination of all character, but the original featurelessness which precedes all definite character and is the very first of all. And this we call Being. It is not to be felt, or perceived by sense, or pictured in imagination: it is only and merely thought, and as such it forms the beginning. Essence also is indeterminate, but in another sense: it has traversed the process of mediation and contains implicit the determination it has absorbed.
In the history of philosophy the different stages of the logical idea assume the shape of successive systems, each based on a particular definition of the Absolute. As the logical Idea is seen to unfold itself in a process from the abstract to the concrete, so in the history of philosophy the earliest systems are the most abstract, and thus at the same time the poorest. The relation too of the earlier to the later systems of philosophy is much like the relation of the corresponding stages of the logical Idea : in other words, the earlier are preserved in the later: but subordinated and submerged. This is the true meaning of a much misunderstood phenomenon in the history of philosophy - the refutation of one system by another , of an earlier by a later. Most commonly the refutation is taken in a purely negative sense to mean that the system refuted has ceased to count for anything, has been set aside and done for. Were it so, the history of philosophy would be, of all studies, most saddening, displaying, as it does, the refutation of every system which time has brought forth. Now although it may be admitted that every philosophy has been refuted, it must be in an equal degree maintained that no philosophy has been refuted. And that in two ways. For first, every philosophy that deserves the name always embodies the Idea: and secondly, every system represents one particular factor or particular stage in the evolution of the Idea. The refutation of a philosophy, therefore, only means that its barriers are crossed, and its special principle reduced to a factor in the completer principle that follows.
To the historian of philosophy it belongs to point out more precisely how far the gradual evolution of his theme coincides with, or swerves from, the dialectical unfolding of the pure logical Idea. It is sufficient to mention here, that logic begins where the proper history of philosophy begins. Philosophy began in the Eleatic school, especially with Parmenides. Parmenides, who conceives the absolute as Being, says that 'Being alone is and Nothing is not'. Such was the true starting point of philosophy, which is always knowledge by thought: and here for the first time we find pure thought seized and made an object to itself.
But this mere Being, as it is mere abstraction, is therefore the
absolutely
negative
: which, in a similarly immediate aspect, is
just
Nothing
.
(1) Hence was derived the second definition of the Absolute: the
Absolute is the Nought. In fact this definition is implied in
saying that the
thing-in-itself
is
the indeterminate,
utterly without form and so without content
- or in saying that God is only the supreme Being and nothing
more; for this is really declaring him to be the same
negativity
as above. The Nothing which the Buddhists make the universal principle,
as well as the final aim and goal of everything, is the same abstraction.
(2) If the opposition in thought is stated in this immediacy as
Being and Nothing, the shock of its nullity is too great not to
stimulate the attempt to fix Being and secure it against the
transition
into Nothing.
With this intent, reflection has recourse
to the plan of discovering some fixed predicate for Being, to
mark it off from Nothing. Thus we find Being identified with what
persists amid all change, with
matter
,
susceptible of innumerable
determinations - or even, unreflectingly, with a single existence,
any chance object of the senses or of the mind. But every additional
and more concrete characterisation causes Being to lose that integrity
and simplicity it had in the beginning. Only in, and by virtue
of, this mere generality is it Nothing, something inexpressible,
whereof the distinction from Nothing is a mere intention or
meaning.
All that is wanted is to realise that these beginnings are nothing
but these empty abstractions, one as empty as the other. The instinct
that induces us to attach a settled import to
Being
, or to both,
is the very necessity which leads to the onward movement of Being
and Nothing, and gives them a
true
or
concrete
significance.
This advance is the
logical deduction
and the movement of thought
exhibited in the sequel. The reflection which finds a profounder
connotation for Being and Nothing is nothing but logical thought,
through which such connotation is evolved, not, however, in an
accidental, but a
necessary
way.
Every signification, therefore, in which
they afterwards appear, is only a more precise specification and
truer definition of the Absolute. And when that is done, the mere
abstract Being and Nothing are replaced by a concrete in which
both these elements form an organic part. The supreme form of
Nought as a separate principle would be Freedom: but Freedom is
negativity in that stage, when it sinks self-absorbed to supreme
intensity, and is itself an affirmation, and even absolute affirmation.
The distinction between Being and Nought is, in the first place, only implicit, and not yet actually made: they only ought to be distinguished. A distinction of course implies two things, and that one of them possesses an attribute which is not found in the other. Being however is an absolute absence of attributes, and so is Nought. Hence the distinction between the two is only meant to be; it is a quite nominal distinction, which is at the same time no distinction. In all other cases of difference there is some common point which comprehends both things.
Nothing, if it be thus immediate and
equal to itself
, is also
conversely the same as Being is. The truth of Being and of Nothing
is accordingly the unity of the two: and this unity is Becoming.
If Being and Nought are identical, say these objectors, it follows that it
makes no difference whether my home, my property, the air I breathe, this
city, the sun, the law, God, are or are not. Now in some of these cases
the objectors foist in private aims, the utility a thing has for me, and
then ask, whether it be all the same to me if the thing exist and if it do
not. For that matter indeed, the teaching of philosophy is precisely what
frees man from the endless crowd of finite aims and intentions, by making
him so insensible to them that their existence or non-existence is to him
a matter of indifference. But it is never to be forgotten that, once
mention something substantial, and you thereby create a connection with
other existences and other purposes which are ex hypothesi worth
having: and on such hypothesis it comes to depend whether the Being or
not-Being of a determinate subject are the same or not. A substantial
distinction is in these cases secretly substituted for the empty
distinction of Being and Nought.
When a concrete existence is disguised under the name of Being
and not-Being, empty-headedness makes its usual mistake of speaking about,
and having in mind, an image of something else than what is in question:
and in this place the question is about abstract
Being and Nothing. In others of the cases referred to, it is virtually
absolute existences and vital ideas and aims, which are placed under the
mere category of Being and not-Being. But there is no more to be said of
these concrete objects, than that they merely are or are not. Barren
abstractions, like Being and Nothing - the initial categories which, for
that reason, are the scantiest anywhere to be found - are utterly
inadequate to the nature of these objects. Substantial truth is something
far above these abstractions and their oppositions. And always when a
concrete existence is disguised under the name of Being and not-Being,
empty-headedness makes its usual mistake of speaking about, and having in
mind an image of, something else than what is in question: and in this
place the question is about abstract Being and Nothing.
(1) The proposition that Being and Nothing is the same seems so
paradoxical to the imagination or understanding, that it is perhaps taken
for a joke. And indeed it is one of the hardest things thought expects
itself to do: for Being and Nothing exhibit the fundamental contrast in
all its immediacy - that is, without the one term being invested with any
attribute which would involve its connection with the other. This
attribute however, as the above paragraph points out, is implicit in them
- the attribute which is just the same in both. So far the deduction of
their unity is completely analytical: indeed the whole progress of
philosophising in every case, if it be a methodical, that is to say a
necessary, progress, merely renders explicit what is implicit in a notion.
It is as correct however to say that Being and Nothing are altogether
different, as to assert their unity. The one is not what the
other is. But since the distinction has not at this point assumed definite
shape (Being and Nothing are still the immediate), it is, in the way that
they have it, something unutterable, which we merely mean.
(2) No great expenditure of wit is needed to make fun of the maxim that
Being and Nothing are the same, or rather to adduce absurdities which, it
is erroneously asserted, are the consequences and illustrations of that
maxim.
'To become' is the true expression for the resultant of 'to be' and 'not to be'; it is the unity of the two; but not only is it the unity, it is also inherent unrest - the unity, which is no mere reference-to-self and therefore without movement, but which through the diversity of Being and Nothing that is in it, is at war with itself. Determinate Being on the other hand, is this unity, or Becoming in this form of unity: hance all that 'is there and so' is one-sided and finite. The opposition between the two factors seems to have vanished; it is only implied in the unity, it is not explicitly put in it.
Becoming is the first concrete thought, and therefore the first notion: whereas Being and Nought are empty abstractions. The notion of Being, therefore, of which we sometimes speak, must mean Becoming; not the mere point of Being, which is empty Nothing, any more than Nothing, which is empty Being> in Being then we have Nothing, and in Nothing, Being; but this Being which does not lose itself in Nothing is Becoming. Nor must we omit the distinction, while we emphasise the unity of Becoming; without that distinction we should once more return to abstract Being. Becoming is only the explicit statement of what Being is in its truth.
We often hear it maintained that thought is opposed to being. Now, in the face of such a statement, our first question ought to be, what is meant by being. If we understand being as it is defined by reflection, all that we can say of it is what is wholly identical and affirmative. And if we then look at thought, it cannot escape us that thought also is at least what is absolutely identical with itself. Both therefore, being as well as thought, have the same attribute. This identity of being and thought is not however to be taken in a concrete sense, as if we could say that a stone, so far as it has being, is the same as a thinking man. A concrete thing is always very different from the abstract category as such. And in the case of being, we are speaking of nothing concrete: for being is the utterly abstract. So far then the question regarding the being of God - a being which is in itself concrete above all measure - is of slight importance.
As the first concrete thought-form, Becoming is the first adequate vehicle of truth. In the history of philosophy, this stage of the logical Idea finds its analogue in the system of Heraclitus . When Heraclitus says 'All is flowing', he enunciates Becoming as the fundamental feature of all existence, whereas the Eleatics, as already remarked, saw only truth in Being, rigid processless Being. Glancing at the principle of the Eleatics, Heraclitus then goes on to say: Being is no more than not-Being; a statement expressing the negativity of abstract Being, and its identity with not-Being, as made explicit in Becoming; both abstractions being alike untenable. This may be looked upon as the real refutation of one system by another. To refute a philosophy is to exhibit the dialectical movement in its principle, and thus reduce it to a constituent member of a higher concrete form of the Idea.
Even Becoming however, taken at its best on its own ground, is an extremely poor term: it needs to grow in depth and weight of meaning. Such deepened force we find e.g. in Life. Life is a Becoming but that is not enough to exhaust the notion of life. A still higher form is found in Mind. Here too is Becoming, but richer and more intensive than mere logical Becoming. The elements whose unity constitute mind are not the bare abstracts of Being and Nought, but the system of the logical Idea and of Nature.
In Becoming, the Being which is one with Nothing, and the Nothing
which is one with Being, are only vanishing factors; they are
and they are not. Thus by its inherent contradiction Becoming
collapses into the unity in which the two elements are absorbed.
This result is accordingly Being
Determinate
(Being there and so).
In this first example we must call to mind, once for all, [that]:
the only way to secure any growth and progress in knowledge is
to hold results fast in their truth. There is absolutely nothing
whatever in which we cannot and must not point to contradictions
or opposite attributes; and the abstraction made by understanding
therefore means a forcible insistence on a single aspect, and
a real effort to obscure and remove all consciousness of the other
attribute which is involved. Whenever such contradiction, then,
is discovered in any object or notion, the usual inference is,
Hence this object is nothing.
Thus
Zeno
, who
first showed the contradiction native to motion, concluded that
there is no motion; and the ancients, who recognised origin and
decease, the two species of Becoming, as untrue categories, made
use of the expression that the One or Absolute neither arises
not perishes. Such a style of dialectic looks only at the negative
aspect of its result, and fails to notice, what is at the same
time really present, the definite result, in the present case
a pure nothing, but a Nothing which includes Being, and, in like
manner, a Being which includes Nothing. Hence Being Determinate
is (1) the unity of Being and Nothing, in which we get rid of
the immediacy in these determinations, and their contradiction
vanishes in their mutual connection - the unity in which they
are only constituent elements. And (2) since the result is the
abolition of the contradiction, it comes in the shape of a simple
unity with itself: that is to say, it also is Being with negation
or determinateness: it is Becoming expressly put in the form of
one of its elements, viz., Being.
Even our ordinary conception of Becoming implies that somewhat comes out of it, and that Becoming therefore has a result. But this conception gives rise to the question, how Becoming does not remain mere Becoming, but has a result?
The answer to this question follows from what Becoming has already shown itself to be. Becoming always contains Being and Nothing in such a way, that these two are always changing into each other, and reciprocally cancelling each other. Thus Becoming stands before us in utter restlessness - unable however to maintain itself in this abstract restlessness: for, since Being and Nothing vanish in Becoming (and that is the very notion of Becoming), the latter must vanish also. Becoming is as it were a fire, which dies out in itself, when it consumes its material. The result of this process however is not empty Nothing, but Being identical with the negation - what we call Being Determinate (being then and there): the primary import of which evidently is that it has become.
(a) Determinate Being is Being with a character or mode - which simply is; and such unmediated character is Quality. And as reflected into itself in this its character or mode, Determinate Being is a somewhat, as existent. The categories, which issue by a closer analysis of Determinate Being, need only be mentioned briefly.
Quality may be described as the determinate mode immediate and identical with Being - as distinguished from Quantity (to come afterwards), which, although a mode of Being, is no longer immediately identical with Being, but a mode indifferent and external to it. A something is what it is in virtue of its quality, and losing its quality it ceases to be what it is.
Quality, moreover, is completely a category only of the finite, and for that reason too it has its proper place in Nature , not in the world of the Mind. Thus, for example, in Nature what are styled elementary bodies, oxygen, nitrogen, etc., should be regarded as existing qualities. But in the sphere of mind, Quality appears in a subordinate way only, and not as if its qualitativeness could exhaust any specific aspect of mind. If, for example, we consider the subjective mind, which forms the object of psychology, we may describe what is called (moral and mental) character, as in logical language identical with Quality. This however does not mean that character is a mode of being which pervades the soul and is immediately identical with it, as is the case in the natural world with elementary bodies beforementioned. Yet a more distinct manifestation of Quality as such, in mind even, is found in the case of besotted or morbid conditions, especially in states of passion and when the passion rises to derangement. The state of mind of a deranged person, being one mass of jealousy, fear, etc., may suitably be described as Quality.
Quality, as determinateness which is, as contrasted with the Negation which is involved in it but distinguished from it, is Reality. Negation is no longer an abstract nothing, but, as a determinate being and somewhat, is only a form of such being - it is as Otherness. Since this otherness, though a determination of Quality itself, is in the first instance distinct from it, Quality is Being-for-another - an expansion of the mere point of Determinate Being, or of Somewhat. The Being as such of Quality, contrasted with this reference to somewhat else, is Being-for-self
The foundation of all determinateness is negation. The unreflecting observer supposes that determinate things are merely positive, and pins them down under the form of being. Mere being however is not the end of the matter: it is, as we have already seen, utter emptiness and instability besides. Still, when abstract being is confused in this way with being modified and determinate, it implies some perception of the fact that, though in determinate being there is involved an element of negation, this element is at first wrapped up, as it were, and only comes to the front and receives its due in Being-for-self. If we go on to consider determinate Being as a determinateness which is, we get in this way what is called Reality.
We speak, for example, of the reality of a plan or a purpose, meaning thereby that they are no longer inner and subjective, but have passed into being-there-and-then. In the same sense the body may be called the reality of the soul, and the law the reality of freedom, and the world altogether the reality of the divine idea. The word 'reality' is however used in another acceptation to mean that something behaves conformably to its essential characteristic or notion. For example, we use the expression: This is a real occupation; This is a real man. Here the term does not merely mean outward and immediate existence: but rather that some existence agrees with its notion. In which sense, be it added, reality is not distinct from the ideality which we shall in the first instance become acquainted with in the shape of Being-for-self.
[b] Being, if kept distnct and apart from its determinate mode, as it is in Being-by-self (Being implicit), would be only the vacant abstraction of Being. In Being (determinate there and then), the determinateness is one with Being; yet at the same time, when explicitly made a negation, it is a Limit, a Barrier. Hence the otherness is not something indifferent and outside it, but a function proper to it. Somewhat is by ts quality, firstly finite, secondly alterable; so that finitude and variability appertain to its being.
Something becomes an other; this other is itself somewhat; therefore it likewise becomes an other, and so on ad infinitum. [Omitted: §94 Infinity, §95 Ideality]
Being-for-self, as reference to itself, is immediacy, and as reference of the negative to itself, is a self-subsistent, the One. This unit, being without distinction in itself, thus excludes the other from itself.
Again, Being-for-self may be described as ideality, just as Being-there-and-then was described as reality. It is said that besides reality there is also an ideality. Thus the two categories are made equal and parallel. Properly speaking, ideality is not somewhat outside of and beside reality: the notion of ideality just lies in its being the truth of reality. That is to say, when reality is explicitly put as what it implicitly is, it is at once seen to be ideality. Hence ideality has not received its proper estimation, when you allow that reality is not all in all, but that an ideality must be recognised outside of it. Such an ideality, external to or it may even be beyond reality, would be no better than an empty name. Ideality only has a meaning when it is the ideality of something: but this something is not a mere indefinite this or that, but existence characterised as reality, which, if retained in isolation, possesses no truth. The distinction between Nature and Mind is not improperly conceived, when the former is traced back to reality, and the latter so fixed and complete as to subsist even without Mind: in Mind it first, as it were, attains its goal and its truth. And similarly, Mind on its part is not merely a world beyond Nature and nothing more: it is really, and with full proof, seen to be mind, only when it involves Nature as absorbed in itself. Apropos of this, we should note the double meaning of the German word aufheben (to put by or set aside). We mean by it (1) to clear away, or annul: thus, we say, a law or regulation is set aside; (2) to keep, or preserve: in which sense we use it when we say: something is well put by. This double usage of language, which gives to the same word a positive and negative meaning, is not an accident, and gives no ground for reproaching language as a cause of confusion. We should rather recognise in it the speculative spirit of our language rising above the me 'either-or' of understanding.
[b] The relation of the negative to itself is a negative relation, and so
a dsitinguishing of the One from itself, the repulsion of the One; that
is, it makes Many Ones. So far as regards the immediacy of the
self-existents, these Many are: and the repulsion of every One of
them becomes to that extent their repulsion against each other as existing
units - in other words, their reciprocal exclusion.
Whenever we speak of the One, the Many usually come into our mind at the
same time. Whence, then, we are forced to ask, do the Many come? This
question is unanswerable by the consciousness which pictures the Many as a
primary datum, and treats the One as only one among the Many. But the
philosophic notion teaches, contrariwise, that the One forms the
presupposition of the Many: and in the thought of the One is implied that
it explicitly make itself Many. ...
The One, as already remarked, just is self-exclusion and explicit putting itself as the Many. Each of the Many however is itself a One, and in virtue of its so behaving, this all rounded repulsion is by one stroke converted into its opposite - Attraction.
[Omitted: §98 Repulsion & Attraction]
The Atomic philosophy forms a vital stage in the historical evolution of the Idea. The principle of that system may be described as Being-for-itself in the shape of the Many. At present, students of nature who are anxious to avoid metaphysics turn a favourable ear to Atomism. But it is not possible to escape metaphysics and cease to trace nature back to terms of thought, by throwing ourselves into the arms of Atomism. The atom, in fact, is itself a thought; and hence the theory which holds matter to consist of atoms is a metaphysical theory.
Newton gave physics an express warning to beware of metaphysics , it is true, but to his honour be it said, he did not by any means obey his own warning. The only mere physicists are the animals: they alone do not think: while man is a thinking being and a born metaphysician. The real question is not whether we shall apply metaphysics, but whether our metaphysics are of the right kind: in other words, whether we are not, instead of the concrete logical Idea, adopting one-sided forms of thought, rigidly fixed by understanding, and making these the basis of our theoretical as well as our practical work. It is on this ground that one objects to the Atomic philosophy.
To Kant we owe the completed theory of matter as the unity of repulsion and attraction. The theory is correct, so far as it recognises attraction to be the other of the two elements involved in the notion of being-for-self: and to be an element no less essential than repulsion to constitute matter. Still, this dynamic construction of matter, as it is termed, has the fault of taking for granted, instead of deducing, attraction and repulsion. Had they been deduced, we should then have seen the How and Why of a unity which is merely asserted. Kant ... [insisted that] matter must be regarded as consisting solely in their unity. ...
The transition from Quality to Quantity, indicated in the paragraph
before us, is not found in our ordinary way of thinking, which
deems each of these categories to exist independently beside the
other. We are in the habit of saying that things are not merely
qualitatively, but also quantitatively defined; but whence these
categories originate, and how they are related to each other,
are questions not further examined. The fact is, quantity just
means quality superseded and absorbed: and it is by the dialectic
of quality here examined that this supersession is effected.
First of all, we had Being: as the truth of Being, came Becoming: which formed the passage into Being Determinate: and the truth of that we found to be Alteration. And in its result Alteration showed itself to be Being-for-self, finally, in the two sides of the process, Repulsion and Attraction, was clearly seen to annul itself, and thereby to annul quality in the totality of its stages.
Still this superseded and absorbed quality is neither an abstract nothing, nor an equally abstract and featureless being: it is only being as indifferent to determinateness or character. This aspect of being is also what appears as quantity in our ordinary conceptions. We observe things, first of all, with an eye to their quality - which we take to be the character identical with the being of the thing. If we proceed to consider their quantity, we get the conception of an indifferent and external character or mode, of such a kind that a thing remains what it is, though its quantity is altered, and the thing becomes greater or less.
It may be well therefore at this point to observe that whenever in our study of the objective world we are engaged in quantitative determinations, it is in all cases Measure which we have in view, as the goal of our operations This is hinted at even in language, when the ascertainment of quantitative features and relations is called measuring. We measure, e.g. the length of different chords that have been put into a state of vibration, with an eye to the qualitative difference of the tones caused by their vibration, corresponding to this difference of length. Similarly, in chemistry, we try to ascertain the quantity of the matters brought into combination, in order to find out the measures or proportions conditioning such combination, that is to say, those quantities which give rise to definite qualities.
Measure is the qualitative quantum, in the first place as immediate - a quantum, to which a determinate being or a quality is attached.
Measure, where quality and quantity are in one, is thus the completion of Being. Being, as we first apprehend it, is something utterly abstract and characterless; but it is the very essence of Being to characterise itself, and its complete characterisation is reached in Measure. Measure, like the other stages of Being, may serve as a definition of the Absolute; God, it has been said, is the Measure of all things. It is this idea which forms the ground-note of many of the ancient Hebrew hymns, in which the glorification of God tends in the main to show that he has appointed to everything its bound: to the sea and the solid land, to the rivers and mountains; and also to the various kinds of plants and animals. To the religious sense of the Greeks the divinity of measure, especially in respect of social ethics, was represented by Nemesis. That conception implies a general theory that all human beings, riches, honour, and power, as well as joy and pain, have their definite measure, the transgression of which brings ruin and destruction. In the world of objects too, we have measure. We see, in the first place, existences in Nature, of which measure forms the essential structure. This is the case, for example, with the solar system, which may be described as the realm of free measures. As we next proceed to the study of inorganic nature, measure retires, as it were, into the background; at least we often find the quantitative and qualitative characteristics showing indifference to each other. Thus the quality of a rock or a river is not tied to a definite magnitude.
But even these objects when closely inspected are found to be not quite measureless: the water of a river, and the single constituents of a rock, when chemically analysed, are seen to be qualities conditioned by the quantitative ratios between the matters they contain. In organic nature, however, measure again rises into immediate perception. The various kinds of plants and animals, in the whole as well as in their parts, have a certain measure: though it is worth noticing that the more imperfect forms, those which are least removed from inorganic nature, are partly distinguished from the higher forms by the greater indefiniteness of their measure. Thus among fossils we find some ammonites discernible only by the microscope and others as large as a cart-wheel. The same vagueness of measure appears in several plants, which stand on a low level of organic development - for instance ferns.
In the sphere of Essence one category does not pass into another , but refers to another merely. In Being, the forms of reference is purely due to our reflection on what takes place: but it is the special and proper characteristic of Essence. In the sphere of Being, when somewhat becomes another, the somewhat has vanished. Not so in Essence: here there is no real other, but only diversity, reference of the one to its other. The transition of Essence is therefore at the same time no transition: for in the passage of different into different, the different does not vanish: the different terms remain in their relation. When we speak of Being and Nought, Being is independent, so is Nought. The case is otherwise with the Positive and the Negative. No doubt these possess the characteristic of Being and Nought. But the Positive by itself has no sense; it is wholly in reference to the negative. And it is the same with the negative. In the sphere of Being the reference of one term to another is only implicit; in Essence on the contrary it is explicit. And this in general is the distinction between the forms of Being and Essence: in Being everything is immediate, in Essence everything is relative .