Nature will therefore originally be the middle [somewhat] arising out of the two, and thus we arrive at the idea of a productivity engaged in a transition into product, or of a product that is productive ad infinitum. We hold to the latter definition.
The idea of the product (the fixed) and that of the productive (the free) are mutually opposed.
Seeing that what we have postulated is already product, it can, if it is productive at all, be productive only in a determinate way. But determined productivity is (active) formation. That third [somewhat] must therefore be in the state of formation.
But the product is supposed to be productive ad infinitum (that transition is never absolutely to take place); it will therefore at every stage be productive in a determinate way; the productivity will remain, but not the product.
(The question might arise how a transition from form to form is possible at all here, when no form is fixed. Still, that momentary forms should be reached, has already been rendered possible by the fact that the evolution cannot take place with infinite rapidity, in which case, therefore, for every step at least, the form is certainly a determinate one.)
The product will appear as in infinite metamorphosis.
(From the stand-point of reflection, as continually on the leap from fluid to solid, without ever reaching, however, the required form.—Organizations that do not live in the grosser element, at least live on the deep ground of the aërial sea—many pass over, by metamorphoses, from one element into another; and what does the animal, whose vital functions almost all consist in contractions, appear to be, other than such a leap?)
The metamorphosis will not possibly take place without rule. For it must remain within the original antithesis, and is thereby confined within limits.[[23]]
This accordance with rule will express itself solely by an internal relationship of forms—a relationship which again is not thinkable without an archetype which lies at the basis of all, and which, with however manifold divergences, they nevertheless all express.
But even with such a product, we have not that which we were in quest of—a product which, while productive ad infinitum, remains the same. That this product should remain the same seems unthinkable, because it is not thinkable without an absolute checking or suppression of the productivity.—The product would have to be checked, as the productivity was checked, for it is still productive—checked by dualization and limitation resulting therefrom. But it must at the same time be explained how the productive product can be checked at each individual stage of its formation, without its ceasing to be productive, or how, by dualization itself the permanence of the productivity is secured.