And now the result of all this?—The condition of the inorganic (as well as of the organic) product, is duality. In any case, however, organic productive product is so only from the fact that the difference NEVER becomes indifference.
It is [in so far] therefore impossible to reduce the construction of organic and of inorganic product to a common expression, and the problem is incorrect, and therefore the solution impossible. The problem presupposes that organic product and inorganic product are mutually opposed, whereas the latter is only the higher power of the former, and is produced only by the higher power of the forces through which the latter also is produced. Sensibility is only the higher power of magnetism; irritability only the higher power of electricity; formative instinct only the higher power of the chemical process.—But sensibility, and irritability, and formative instinct are all only included in that one process of irritation. (Galvanism affects them all).[[61]] But if they are only the higher functions of magnetism, electricity, &c., there must again be a higher synthesis for these in Nature[[62]]—and this, however, it is certain, can be sought for only in Nature, in so far as, viewed as a whole, it is absolutely organic.
And this, moreover, is also the result to which the genuine Science of Nature must lead, viz: that the difference between organic and inorganic nature is only in Nature as object, and that Nature as originally-productive soars above both.[[63]]
There remains only one remark, which we may make, not so much on account of its intrinsic interest, as in order to justify what we said above in regard to the relation of our system to the hitherto so-called dynamical system. If it were asked, for instance, in what form our original antithesis, cancelled, or rather fixed, in the product, would appear from the stand-point of reflection, we cannot better designate what is found in the product by analysis, than as expansive and attractive (retarding) force, to which then however, gravitation must always be added as the tertium quid, whereby those opposites become what they are.
Nevertheless, the designation is valid only for the stand-point of reflection or of analysis, and cannot be applied for synthesis at all; and thus our system leaves off exactly at the point where the Dynamical Physics of Kant and his successors begins, namely, at the antithesis as it presents itself in the product.
And with this the author delivers over these Elements of a System of Speculative Physics to the thinking heads of the age, begging them to make common cause with him in this science, which opens up views of no mean order, and to make up by their own powers, acquirements and external relations, for what, in these respects, he lacks.
[The notes not marked as “Remarks of the original” are by the German Editor.—Note of the Translator.]
ANALYSIS OF HEGEL’S ÆSTHETICS.
[Translated from the French of M. Ch. Benard, by J. A. Martling.]
II. Sculpture.—Architecture fashions and disposes of the masses of inert nature according to geometric laws, and it thus succeeds in presenting only a vague and incomplete symbol of the thought. Its [thought’s] progress consists in detaching itself from physical existence, and in expressing spirit in a manner more in conformity with its nature. The first step which art takes in this career does not yet indicate the return of spirit upon itself, which would render necessary a wholly spiritual mode of expression, and signs as immaterial as thought; but spirit appears under a corporeal, organized living form. What art represents is the animate, living body, and above all the human body, with which the soul is completely identified. Such is the rôle and the place which belong to Sculpture.