(γ) At the second stage the one factor of the product had only a relative preponderance;[[42]] at the third it will attain an absolute one—by the two bodies A and B, the original antithesis is again completely represented—matter will revert to the first stage of becoming.
At the first stage there is still PURE difference, without substrate [for it was only out of it that a substrate arose]; at the second stage it is the simple factors of two products that are opposed to each other; at the third it is the PRODUCTS THEMSELVES that are opposed; here is difference in the third power.
If two products are absolutely opposed to each other,[[43]] then in each of them singly indifference of gravity (by which alone each is) must be cancelled, and they must gravitate to each other.[[44]] (In the second stage there was only a mutual gravitating of the factors to each other—here there is a gravitating of the products.)[[45]]—This process, therefore, first assails the indifferent (element) of the PRODUCT—that is, the products themselves dissolve.
Where there is equal difference there is equal indifference; difference of products, therefore, can end only with indifference of products.—(All hitherto deduced indifference has been only indifference of substrateless, or at least simple factors.—Now we come to speak of an indifference of products.) This struggle will not cease till there exists a common product. The product, in forming itself, passes, from both sides, through all the intermediate links that lie between the two products [for example, through all the intermediate stages of specific gravity], till it finds the point at which it succumbs to indifference, and the product is fixed.
GENERAL REMARK.
By virtue of the first construction, the product is posited as identity; this identity, it is true, again resolves itself into an antithesis, which, however, is no longer an antithesis cleaving to products, but an antithesis in the productivity itself.—The product, therefore, as product, is identity.—But even in the sphere of products, there again arises a duplicity in the second stage, and it is only in the third that even the duplicity of the products again becomes identity of the products.[[46]]—There is therefore here also a progress from thesis to antithesis, and thence to synthesis.—The last synthesis of matter closes in the chemical process; if composition is to proceed yet further in it, then this circle must open again.
We must leave it to our readers themselves to make out the conclusions to which the principles here stated lead, and the universal interdependence which is introduced by them into the phenomena of Nature.—Nevertheless, to give one instance: when in the chemical process the bond of gravity is loosed, the phenomenon of light which accompanies the chemical process in its greatest perfection (in the process of combustion), is a remarkable phenomenon, which, when followed out further, confirms what is stated in the Outlines, page 146:—“The action of light must stand in secret interdependence with the action of gravity which the central bodies exercise.”—For, is not the indifference dissolved at every step, since gravity, as ever active, presupposes a continual cancelling of indifference?—It is thus, therefore, that the sun, by the distribution exercised on the earth, causes a universal separation of matter into the primary antithesis (and hence gravity). This universal cancelling of indifference is what appears to us (who are endowed with life) as light; wherever, therefore, that indifference is dissolved (in the chemical process), there light must appear to us. According to the foregoing, it is one antithesis which, beginning at magnetism, and proceeding through electricity, at last loses itself in the chemical phenomena.[[47]] In the chemical process, namely, the whole product + E or - E (the positively electric body, in the case of absolutely unburnt bodies, is always the more combustible;[[48]] whereas the absolutely incombustible is the cause of all negatively electric condition;) and if we may be allowed to invert the case, what then are bodies themselves but condensed (confined) electricity? In the chemical process the whole body dissolves into + E or - E. Light is everywhere the appearing of the positive factor in the primary antithesis; hence, wherever the antithesis is restored, there is light for us, because generally only the positive factor is beheld, and the negative one is only felt.—Is the connection of the diurnal and annual deviations of the magnetic needle with light now conceivable—and, if in every chemical process the antithesis is dissolved, is it conceivable that Light is the cause and beginning of all chemical process?[[49]]
(f) The dynamical process is nothing but the second construction of matter, and however many stages there are in the dynamical process, there are the same number in the original construction of matter. This axiom is the converse of axiom e.[[50]] That which, in the dynamical process is perceived in the product, takes place outside of the product with the simple factors of all duality.
The first start to original production is the limitation of productivity through the primitive antithesis, which, as antithesis (and as the condition of all construction), is distinguished only in magnetism; the second stage of production is the change of contraction and expansion, and as such becomes visible only in electricity; finally, the third stage is the transition of this change into indifference—a change which is recognized as such only in chemical phenomena.
Magnetism, Electricity and Chemical Process are the categories of the original construction of nature [matter]—the latter escapes us and lies outside of intuition, the former are what of it remains behind, what stands firm, what is fixed—the general schemes for the construction of matter.[[51]]