1. The Doctrine of Being. (1.) Quality.—Science begins with the immediate and indeterminate conception of being. This, in its want of content and emptiness, is nothing more than a pure negation, a nothing. These two conceptions are thus as absolutely identical as they are absolutely opposed; each of the two disappears immediately in its contrary. This oscillation of the two is the pure becoming, which, if it be a transition from nothing to being, we call arising, or, in the reverse case, we call it a departing. The still and simple precipitate of this process of arising and departing, is existence (Daseyn). Existence is being with a determinateness, or it is quality; more closely, it is reality or limited existence. Limited existence excludes every other from itself. This reference to itself, which is seen through its negative relation to every other, we call being per se (Fürsichseyn). Being per se which refers itself only to itself, and repels every other from itself, is the one. But, by means of this repelling, the one posits immediately many ones. But the many ones are not distinguished from each other. One is what the other is. The many are therefore one. But the one is just as truly the manifold. For its exclusion is the positing of its contrary, or it posits itself thereby as manifold. By this dialectic of attraction and repulsion, quality passes over into quantity: for indifference in respect of distinction or qualitative determinateness is quantity.
(2.) Quantity.—Quantity is determination of greatness, which, as such, is indifferent in respect of quality. In so far as the greatness contains many ones distinguishably within itself, it is a discrete, or has the element of discretion; but on the other hand, in so far as the many ones are similar, and the greatness is thus indistinguishable, it is continuous, or has the element of continuity. Each of these two determinations is at the same time identical with the other; discretion cannot be conceived without continuity, nor continuity without discretion. The existence of quantity, or the limited quantity, is the quantum. The quantum has also manifoldness and unity in itself; it is the enumeration of the unities, i. e. number. Corresponding to the quantum or the extensive greatness, is the intensive greatness or the degree. With the conception of degree, so far as degree is simple determinateness, quantity approaches quality again. The unity of quantity and quality is the measure.
(3.) The measure is a qualitative quantum, a quantum on which the quality is dependent. An example of quantity determining the quality of a definite object is found in the temperature of water, which decides whether the water shall remain water or turn to ice or steam. Here the quantum of heat actually constitutes the quality of the water. Quality and quantity are, therefore, ideal determinations, perpetually turning around on one being, on a third, which, is distinguished from the immediate what and how much (quality and quantity) of a thing. This third is the essence, which is the negation of every thing immediate, or quality independent of the immediate being. Essence is being in se, being divided in itself, a self-separation of being. Hence the twofoldness of all determinations of essence.
2. The Doctrine of Essence. (1.) The Essence as such. The essence as reflected being is the reference to itself only as it is a reference to something other. We apply to this being the term reflected analogously with the reflection of light, which, when it falls on a mirror, is thrown back by it. As now the reflected light is, through its reference to another object, something mediated or posited, so the reflected being is that which is shown to be mediated or grounded through another. From the fact that philosophy makes its problem to know the essence of things, the immediate being of things is represented as a covering or curtain behind which the essence is concealed. If, therefore, we speak of the essence of an object, the immediate being standing over against the essence (for without this the essence cannot be conceived), is set down to a mere negative, to an appearance. The being appears in the essence. The essence is, therefore, the being as appearance in itself. The essence when conceived in distinction from the appearance, gives the conception of the essential, and that which only appears in the essence, is the essenceless, or the unessential. But since the essential has a being only in distinction from the unessential, it follows that the latter is essential to the former, which needs its unessential just as much as the unessential needs it. Each of the two, therefore, appears in the other, or there takes place between them a reciprocal reference which we call reflection. We have, therefore, to do in this whole sphere with determinations of reflection, with determinations, each one of which refers to the other, and cannot be conceived without it (e. g. positive and negative, ground and sequence, thing and properties, content and form, power and expression). We have, therefore, in the development of the essence, those same determinations which we found in the development of being, only no longer in an immediate, but in a reflected form. Instead of being and nothing, we have now the forms of the positive and negative; instead of the there-existent (Daseyn), we now have existence.
Essence is reflected being, a reference to itself, which, however, is mediated through a reference to something other which appears in it. This reflected reference to itself we call identity (which is unsatisfactorily and abstractly expressed in the so-called first principle of thought, that A = A). This identity, as a negativity referring itself to itself, as a repulsion of its own from itself, contains essentially the determination of distinction. The immediate and external distinction is the difference. The essential distinction, the distinction in itself, is the antithesis (positive and negative). The self-opposition of the essence is the contradiction. The antithesis of identity and distinction is put in agreement in the conception of the ground. Since now the essence distinguishes itself from itself, there is the essence as identical with itself or the ground, and the essence as distinguished from itself or the sequence. In the category of ground and sequence the same thing, i. e. the essence, is twice posited; the grounded and the ground are one and the same content, which makes it difficult to define the ground except through the sequence, or the sequence except through the ground. The two can, therefore, be divided only by a powerful abstraction; but because the two are identical, it is peculiarly a formalism to apply this category. If reflection would inquire after a ground, it is because it would see the thing as it were in a twofold relation, once in its immediateness, and then as posited through a ground.
(2.) Essence and Phenomenon.—The phenomenon is the appearance which the essence fills, and which is hence no longer essenceless. There is no appearance without essence, and no essence which may not enter into phenomenon. It is one and the same content which at one time is taken as essence, and at another as phenomenon. In the phenomenal essence we recognize the positive element which has hitherto been called ground, but which we now name content, and the negative element which we call the form. Every essence is a unity of content and form, i. e. it exists. In distinction from immediate being, we call that being which has proceeded from some ground, existence, i. e. grounded being. When we view the essence as existing, we call it thing. In the relation of a thing to its properties we have a repetition of the relation of form and content. The properties show us the thing in respect of its form, but it is thing in respect of its content. The relation between the thing and its properties is commonly indicated by the verb to have (e. g. the thing has properties), in order to distinguish between the two. The essence as a negative reference to itself, and as repelling itself from itself in order to a reflection in an alterum, is power and expression. In this category, like all the other categories of essence, one and the same content is posited twice. The power can only be explained from the expression, and the expression only from the power; consequently every explanation of which this category avails itself, is tautological. To regard power as uncognizable, is only a self-deception of the understanding respecting its own doing.—A higher expression for the category of power and expression is the category of inner and outer. The latter category stands higher than the former, because power needs some solicitation to express itself, but the inner is the essence spontaneously manifesting itself. Both of these, the inner and the outer, are also identical; neither is without the other. That, e. g. which the man is internally in respect of his character, is he also externally in his action. The truth of this relation will be, therefore, the identity of inner and outer, of essence and phenomenon, viz.:
(3.) Actuality.—Actuality must be added as a third to being and existence. In the actuality, the phenomenon is a complete and adequate manifestation of the essence. The true actuality is, therefore (in opposition to possibility and contingency), a necessary being, a rational necessity. The well-known Hegelian sentence that every thing is rational, and every thing rational is actual, is seen in this apprehension of “actuality” to be a simple tautology. The necessary, when posited as its own ground, identical with itself, is substance. The phenomenal side, the unessential in the substance, and the contingent in the necessary, are accidences. These are no longer related to the substance, as the phenomenon to the essence, or the outer to the inner, i. e. as an adequate manifestation; they are only transitory affections of the substance, accidentally changing phenomenal forms, like sea waves on the water of the sea. They are not produced by the substance, but are rather destroyed in it. The relation of substance leads to the relation of cause. In the relation of cause there is one and the same thing posited on the one side as cause, and on the other side as effect. The cause of warmth is warmth, and its effect is again warmth. The effect is a higher conception than the accidence, since it actually stands over against the cause, and the cause itself passes over into effect. So far, however, as each side in the relation of cause presupposes the other, we shall find the true relation one in which each side is at the same time cause and effect, i. e. reciprocal action. Reciprocal action is a higher relation than causality, because there is no pure causality. There is no effect without counteraction. We leave the province of essence with the category of reciprocal action. All the categories of essence had shown themselves as a duplex of two sides, but when we come to the category of reciprocal action, the opposition between cause and effect is destroyed, and they meet together; unity thus takes again the place of duplicity. We have, therefore, again a being which coincides with mediate being. This unity of being and essence, this inner or realized necessity, is the conception.
3. The Doctrine of the Conception.—A conception is a rational necessity. We can only have a conception of that whose true necessity we have recognized. The conception is, therefore, the truly actual, the peculiar essence; because it states as well that which is actual as that which should be.
(1.) The subjective conception contains the elements of universality (the conception of species), particularity (ground of classification, logical difference), and individuality (species—logical difference). The conception is therefore a unity of that which is distinct. The self-separation of the conception is the judgment. In the judgment, the conception appears as self-excluding duality. The twofoldness is seen in the difference between subject and predicate, and the unity in the copula. Progress in the different forms of judgment, consists in this, viz., that the copula fills itself more and more with the conception. But thus the judgment passes over into the conclusion or inference, i. e. to the conception which is identical with itself through the conception. In the inference one conception is concluded with a third through a second. The different figures of the conclusion are the different steps in the self-mediation of the conception. The conception is when it mediates itself with itself and the conclusion is no longer subjective; it is no longer my act, but an objective relation is fulfilled in it.
(2.) Objectivity is a reality only of the conception. The objective conception has three steps,—Mechanism, or the indifferent relation of objects to each other; Chemism, or the interpenetration of objects and their neutralization; Teleology, or the inner design of objects. The end accomplishing itself or the self-end is,