(3.) The idea.—The idea is the highest logical definition of the absolute. The immediate existence of the idea, we call life, or process of life. Every thing living is self-end immanent-end. The idea posited in its difference as a relation of objective and subjective, is the true and good. The true is the objective rationality subjectively posited; the good is the subjective rationality carried into the objectivity. Both conceptions together constitute the absolute idea, which is just as truly as it should be, i. e. the good is just as truly actualized as the true is living and self-realizing.
The absolute and full idea is in space, because it discharges itself from itself, as its reflection; this its being in space is Nature.
II. The Science of Nature.—Nature is the idea in the form of differentiation. It is the idea externalizing itself; it is the mind estranged from itself. The unity of the conception is therefore concealed in nature, and since philosophy makes it its problem to seek out the intelligence which is hidden in nature, and to pursue the process by which nature loses its own character and becomes mind, it should not forget that the essence of nature consists in being which has externalized itself, and that the products of nature neither have a reference to themselves, nor correspond to the conception, but grow up in unrestrained and unbridled contingency. Nature is a bacchanalian god who neither bridles nor checks himself. It therefore represents no ideal succession, rising ever in regular order, but, on the contrary, it every where obliterates all essential limits by its doubtful structures, which always defy every fixed classification. Because it is impossible to throw the determinations of the conception over nature, natural philosophy is forced at every point, as it were, to capitulate between the world of concrete individual structures, and the regulative of the speculative idea.
Natural philosophy has its beginning, its course, and its end. It begins with the first or immediate determination of nature, with the abstract universality of its being extra se, space and matter; its end is the dissevering of the mind from nature in the form of a rational and self-conscious individuality—man; the problem which it has to solve is, to show the intermediate link between these two extremes, and to follow out successively the increasingly successful struggles of nature to raise itself to self-consciousness, to man. In this process, nature passes through three principal stages.
1. Mechanics, or matter and an ideal system of matter. Matter is the being extra se (Aussersichseyn) of nature, in its most universal form. Yet it shows at the outset that tendency to being per se which forms the guiding thread of natural philosophy—gravity. Gravity is the being in se (Insichseyn) of matter; it is the desire of matter to come to itself, and shows the first trace of subjectivity. The centre of gravity of a body is the one which it seeks. This same tendency of bringing all the manifold unto being per se lies at the basis of the solar system and of universal gravitation. The centrality which is the fundamental conception of gravity, becomes here a system, which is in fact a rational system so far as the form of the orbit, the rapidity of motion, or the time of revolution may be referred to mathematical laws.
2. Physics.—But matter possesses no individuality. Even in astronomy it is not the bodies themselves, but only their geometrical relations which interest us. We have here at the outset to treat of quantitative and not yet of qualitative determinations. Yet in the solar system, matter has found its centre, itself. Its abstract and hollow being in se has resolved itself into form. Matter now, as possessing a quality, is an object of physics. In physics we have to do with matter which has particularized itself in a body, in an individuality. To this province belongs inorganic nature, its forms and reciprocal references.
3. Organics.—Inorganic nature, which was the object of physics, destroys itself in the chemical process. In the chemical process, the inorganic body loses all its properties (cohesion, color, shining, sound, transparency, &c.), and thus shows the evanescence of its existence and that relativity which is its being. This chemical process is overcome by the organic, the living process of nature. True, the living body is ever on the point of passing over to the chemical process; oxygen, hydrogen and salt, are always entering into a living organism, but their chemical action is always overcome; the living body resists the chemical process till it dies. Life is self-preservation, self-end. While therefore nature in physics had risen to individuality, in organics, it progresses to subjectivity. The idea, as life, represents itself in three stages.
(1.) The general image of life in geological organism, or the mineral kingdom. Yet the mineral kingdom is the result, and the residuum of a process of life and formation already passed. The primitive rock is the stiffened crystal of life, and the geological earth is a giant corpse. The present life which produces itself eternally anew, breaks forth as the first moving of subjectivity,
(2.) In the organism of plants or the vegetable kingdom. The plant rises indeed to a formative process, to a process of assimilation, and to a process of species. But it is not yet a totality perfectly organized in itself. Each part of the plant is the whole individual, each twig is the whole tree. The parts are related indifferently to each other; the crown can become a root, and the root a crown. The plant, therefore, does not yet attain a true being in se of individuality; for, in order that this may be attained, an absolute unity of the individual is necessary. This unity, which constitutes an individual and concrete subjectivity, is first seen in
(3.) The animal organism, the animal kingdom. An uninterrupted intus-susception, free motion and sensation, are first found in the animal organism. In its higher forms we find an inner warmth and a voice. In its highest form, man, nature, or rather the spirit, which works through nature, apprehends itself as conscious individuality, as Ego. The spirit thus become a free and rational self, has now completed its self-emancipation from nature.