That self-determination is the inevitable result, no matter what hypothesis be assumed, is also evident. Taking all counter-hypotheses and generalizing them, we have this analysis:
I. Any and every being is determined from without through another. (This theorem includes all anti-self-determination doctrines.)
II. It results from this that any and every being is dependent upon another and is a finite one; it cannot be isolated without destroying it. Hence it results that every being is an element of a whole that includes it as a subordinate moment.
III. Dependent being, as a subordinate element, cannot be said to support any thing attached to it, for its own support is not in itself but in another, namely, the whole that includes it. From this it results that no dependent being can depend upon another dependent being, but rather upon the including whole.
The including whole is therefore not a dependent; since it is for itself, and each element is determined through it, and for it, it may be called the negative unity (or the unity which negates the independence of the elements).
Remark.—A chain of dependent beings collapses into one dependent being. Dependence is not converted into independence by simple multiplication. All dependence is thus an element of an independent whole.
IV. What is the character of this independent whole, this negative unity? “Character” means determination, and we are prepared to say that its determination cannot be through another, for then it would be a dependent, and we should be referred again to the whole, including it. Its determination by which the multiplicity of elements arises is hence its own self-determination. Thus all finitude and dependence presupposes as its condition, self-determination.
V. Self-determination more closely examined exhibits some remarkable results, (which will throw light on the discussion of “Essence and Phenomena” above):
(1.) It is “causa sui;” active and passive; existing dually as determining and determined; this self-diremption produces a distinction in itself which is again cancelled.
(2.) As determiner (or active, or cause), it is the pure universal—the possibility of any determinations. But as determined (passive or effect) it is the special, the particular, the one-sided reality that enters into change.