From the point at which reflection and intuition separate, a separation, be it remarked, which is possible only on the hypothesis of the evolutions being complete, physics divide into the two opposite directions, into which the two systems, the atomistic and the dynamical, have been divided.
The dynamical system denies the absolute evolution of Nature, and passes from Nature as synthesis (i. e. Nature as subject) to Nature as evolution (i. e. Nature as object); the atomistic system passes from the evolution, as the original, to Nature as synthesis; the former passes from the stand-point of intuition to that of reflection; the latter from the stand-point of reflection to that of intuition.
Both directions are equally possible. If the analysis only is right, then the synthesis must be capable of being found again through analysis, just as the analysis in its turn can be found through the synthesis. But whether the analysis is correct can be tested only by the fact that we can pass from it again to the synthesis. The synthesis therefore is, and continues, the absolutely presupposed.
The problems of the one system turn exactly round into those of the other; that which, in atomical physics, is the cause of the composition of Nature is, in dynamical physics, that which checks evolution. The former explains the composition of Nature by the force of cohesion, whereby, however, no continuity is ever introduced into it; the latter, on the contrary, explains cohesion by the continuity of evolution. (All cohesion is originally only in the productivity.)
Both systems set out from something purely ideal. Absolute synthesis is as much purely ideal as absolute analysis. The Real occurs only in Nature as product; but Nature is not product, either when thought as absolute involution or as absolute evolution; product is what is contained between the two extremes.
The first problem for both systems is to construct the product—i. e. that wherein those opposites become real. Both reckon with purely ideal magnitudes so long as the product is not constructed: it is only in the directions in which they accomplish this that they are opposed. Both systems, as far as they have to deal with merely ideal factors, have the same value, and the one forms the test of the other.—That which is concealed in the depths of productive Nature must be reflected as product in Nature as Nature, and thus the atomistic system must be the continual reflex of the dynamical. In the Outlines, of the two directions, that of atomistic physics has been chosen intentionally. It will contribute not a little to the understanding of our science, if we here demonstrate in the productivity what was there shown in the product.
(m) In the pure productivity of Nature there is absolutely nothing distinguishable except duality; it is only productivity dualized in itself that gives the product.
Inasmuch as the absolute productivity arrives only at producing per se, not at the producing of a determinate [somewhat], the tendency of Nature, in virtue of which product is arrived at, must be the negative of productivity.
In Nature, in so far as it is real, there can no more be productivity without a product, than a product without productivity. Nature can only approximate to the two extremes, and it must be demonstrated that it approximates to both.
(α) Pure productivity passes originally into formlessness.