a) Otherness

Existence is therefore first that unity not merely as being, but just as essentially as non-being. Or that unity is not only existence that is, but also existence that is not; non-existence.

In connection with the transition of being into nothing it was recalled in what respect that transition is immediate. The nothing is not yet posited on being, although being essentially is nothing. Existence, by contrast, already contains the nothing posited within its own self, and is thereby the very yardstick of its own incompleteness, and with that carries on its own self the necessity of getting posited as non-existence.

Second, non-existence is not pure nothing; for it is a nothing as that of existence. And this negation is taken from existence itself; but in existence it is united with being. Non-existence is therefore itself a being; it is non-existence that is. A non-existence that is, however, is itself existence. This second existence is nevertheless at the same time not existence in the same manner as at first; for it is just as much non-existence; existence as non-existence; existence as the nothing of its own self, so that this nothing of its own self is likewise existence. — Or existence is essentially otherness.

Or, put shortly by comparing it with its own self, existence is the immediate simple unity of being and nothing; but because it is unity of being and nothing, it is rather not a unity equal to itself, but is downright unequal to itself, or is otherness.

Otherness is at first otherness in and for itself, not the other of something, such that existence would have stayed standing over against the other, and such that we should have one existence and another existence. For existence has altogether passed over into otherness. Otherness is itself existence; but existence as such is the immediate; this immediacy, however, has not remained, but rather existence is existence only as non-existence, or it is otherness.

As being passed over into nothing, so existence into otherness; otherness is the nothing, yet as reference. An other is not-this; but this is likewise an other, hence also not-this. There is no existence that would not at the same time be determined as an other, or that would not carry a negative reference.

Representation grants this too. If we call one existence A, and the other B, then at first B is determined as the other. Yet A is just as much the other of B. Both are others.

In all this, however, otherness shows up as a determination foreign to the existence so determined, or as the other outside the one existence; partly in such a way that an existence gets determined as other only through the comparison drawn by a third, while for itself it is not an other, partly in such a way that it gets determined as other only for the sake of the other that lies outside it, and not in and for itself. Yet in fact each existence determines itself, for representation too, just as much as an other existence, so that no existence is left to it that would be determined only as an existence and not as an other; or no existence that would not lie outside an existence and hence not itself be an other. — Representation does indeed reach the universality of a determination, but not the necessity of that determination in and for its own self. This necessity lies, though, in this, that it has shown itself at the concept of existence that existence as such is in and for itself the other, that it holds its otherness within its own self. — But otherness is the nothing essentially as reference, or is the sundering, the removing of itself from itself, and hence this determination of otherness sets existence over against itself; which is the side that alone hovers before representation.

Third: existence itself is essentially otherness; it has passed over into it. The other is thus immediate, not a reference to something lying outside it, but an other in-and-for-itself. But so taken it is the other of its own self. — As the other of its own self it is also existence in general, or immediate. Existence therefore does not vanish in its non-existence, in its other; for this is the other of its own self; and non-existence is itself existence.

Existence maintains itself in its non-existence; it is essentially one with it, and essentially not one with it. Existence therefore stands in reference to its otherness; it is not purely its otherness; otherness is at the same time essentially contained within it, and at the same time still separated from it; it is being-for-other.

b) Being-for-other and Being-in-itself

1. Being-for-other makes up the genuine determination of existence. Existence as such is something immediate, something without reference; or it stands in the determination of being. But existence, as enclosing non-being within itself, is essentially determinate being, negated being, an other, — but because it at the same time also maintains itself in its negation, only being-for-other.

2. As pure being-for-other, existence is properly only in passage over into otherness. Yet it also maintains itself in its non-existence, and is being. It is, however, not merely being in general, but being set in opposition to its non-existence; a being taken as reference to self against its reference to an other, as self-equality against its own inequality. A being of this sort is being-in-itself.

3. Being-for-other and being-in-itself make up the two moments of existence. There are two pairs of determinations that come up here: 1) existence and an other; 2) being-for-other, and being-in-itself. The first pair holds the determination that is indifferent and without reference; existence and an other drift apart from one another. Their truth, however, is the reference between them; being-for-other, then, and being-in-itself are those same determinations as moments; as determinations that are references, and that abide within their unity, within that unity which existence is; or each of them holds on itself, along with itself, the moment that is distinct from it.

It was recalled above that being and nothing are no longer being and nothing once they stand in the unity that is existence, — for that they only are outside their unity; so too being and nothing, taken in their restless unity, in becoming, amount to coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be. — Being within existence is being-in-itself. For being is the reference to self, the self-equality, which now, however, is no longer immediate; rather it is reference to self only as the non-being of non-existence; (as reflected existence). — Just so, non-being as a moment of existence, within this unity of being with non-being, is not non-existence in general, but immediately an other, and more determinately, a reference toward non-existence, or being-for-other.

Accordingly being-in-itself is in the first place a negative reference toward non-existence; otherness lies outside it, and it stands opposed to that otherness; so far as something is in itself, otherness and being-for-other have been taken away from it. But in the second place it carries non-being on its own self as well; for it itself is the non-being of being-for-other.

Being-for-other, though, is in the first place the negation of being, within existence; so far as something has its being in an other or for an other, a being of its own is what it lacks. But in the second place it is not the non-existence that would be pure nothing; it is a non-existence pointing over to being-in-itself, just as, the other way round, being-in-itself does the pointing over to being-for-other.

c) Reality

Being-in-itself and being-for-other are the moments, or the inner differences, of existence. They are being and nothing as differentiated within existence. Or, through this difference existence is not dissolved; rather these moments are held essentially in the unity which existence is; for they themselves, as was just shown, are these unities.

Existence itself is at first an immediate, simple unity of being and nothing. So far as being and nothing have determined themselves more closely within it as the moments just considered, it is no longer in the first form of immediacy, but is reflected existence; it is existence insofar as it has determined itself as being-in-itself and as being-for-other, and is the unity of these as its moments. As this reflected existence it is reality.

Remark

Reality can look like a word of many meanings, because it gets used of very diverse, indeed opposed determinations. Where one says of thoughts, of concepts, of theories, they have no reality, the sense here is that no external existence, no actuality, accrues to them; in itself or in its concept the idea of a Platonic republic, for instance, may well be true. — Conversely, when for instance only the shine of wealth is present in lavish expenditure, it is likewise said that reality is lacking, and what is understood is that such expenditure is only an external existence with no inner ground. Of certain occupations it is said that they are no real occupations, namely none that have worth in themselves; — or of grounds, that they are not real, insofar as they are not drawn from the essence of the matter.

The one time, then, what is understood by reality is external existence, the other time being-in-itself. Yet this is not a differing or an opposed meaning of reality, but rather only One meaning, because reality essentially encloses both of those determinations within itself. If therefore only being-in-itself, or only being-for-other is present, then reality is missed for the reason that each of these determinations taken by itself is one-sided, whereas reality is the totality that calls for both.

The in-itself too carries, in part, this double meaning. Something is in-itself insofar as it has gone back into itself out of being-for-other. But something also has a determination or circumstance in itself (here the accent falls on in) or on it, insofar as this circumstance is external on it, a being-for-other.

These two are united in existence, or in reality. Existence is in itself just as much as it has something on it, or is being-for-other. But that existence has that, which it is in itself, also on it, and, the other way round, that it also is in itself what it counts for as being-for-other, — this bears on the identity of being-in-itself with being-for-other, chiefly with respect to a content, and it comes out formally in part already within the sphere of existence, insofar as determination passes over into constitution, but more expressly where essence gets considered, and the relation between inwardness and outwardness, and then most determinately where the idea gets considered, as the unity of concept and actuality.

Here, though, the sense of the thing-in-itself already shows itself provisionally as well, which is a very simple abstraction, yet for a while was a very important determination, just as the proposition that what things are in themselves is unknown to us passed for a wisdom of wide currency. — Things are called in-themselves insofar as abstraction is made from all being-for-other, that is, generally speaking, insofar as they get thought without any determination whatever, as nothing. Taken in this sense one certainly cannot know what a thing in-itself may be. For the question: what? calls for determinations to be stated; yet since what is at issue is meant all the while to be things-in-themselves, that is, precisely without determination, the impossibility of answering has been thoughtlessly built into the question, or else one produces a self-contradicting answer. The thing-in-itself amounts to the same as that absolute about which nothing is known save that all is one within it. But what the thing-in-itself is in truth, or rather what is in itself at all, of that the Logic is itself the exposition. If it is asked of a determinate thing what it may be in itself, the simple logical answer runs that it is in itself what it is in its concept.

The former metaphysical concept of God, which was chiefly laid at the ground of the ontological proof, so called, for God's existence, can be mentioned here. God, that is, received the determination the sum total of all realities, and this sum total was said to harbour no contradiction within itself, no one of the realities sublating another; for reality is supposed to count only as a perfection, as a positive that harbours no negation. Hence the realities are said to stand in no opposition and not to contradict one another.

With this concept of reality it is therefore assumed that reality still remains even when all negation, and with it all determinateness of reality, has been sublated. Yet reality is existence in general; it holds non-being as being-for-other, and more closely the limit or determinateness. Reality that is meant to be taken in the so-called eminent sense, or as infi nite, — in the ordinary meaning of the word, — is widened out into what is devoid of determination, and forfeits its meaning. The goodness of God is said to be goodness not in the ordinary sense but in the eminent one, not distinct from justice but tempered by it, just as conversely justice by goodness; but so taken goodness is goodness no longer, nor is justice still justice. — Power is to be tempered by wisdom, but so taken it is not absolute power; — wisdom is to be widened out into power, but so taken it vanishes as the wisdom that determines purpose and measure. Later on the true concept of the infinite will come out, just as the absolute unity will determine itself ever more closely, a unity that does not consist in a tempering, a reciprocal limiting, or a blending, seeing that such is a thoroughly superficial reference, kept in indeterminate fog, one with which only conceptless representation can be satisfied. — Reality, as it is taken in that definition of God as a determinate quality, once carried out beyond its determinateness ceases to be reality; it becomes the one-sided in-itself, which is empty; and God as the purely real in everything real, or as the sum total of all realities, is that same thing devoid of determination and of content that the empty absolute mentioned earlier is, in which everything is One.

3. Something

Existence as reality is the differentiating of its own self into being-in-itself and being-for-other. Herein being-in-itself is as differentiated from being-for-other; but it thereby is only as referred to it, and in unity with it. Just so being-for-other is not otherness itself, but holds within itself the reference to its own self, being-in-itself. These two unities accordingly make up, in their very difference, One unity, and are the passing over into one another.

Existence at first, as such, is only the immediate unity of being and nothing. Reality is this unity in the determinate difference of its moments, which make up distinct sides on it, determinations of reflection that are indifferent toward one another. But because each one is only as standing in reference to the other, and each encloses the other within itself, reality ceases to be a unity of the sort in which both subsist indifferently. It is a unity that does not let them subsist, their sublating simple unity. Existence is being-within-itself, and as being-within-itself it is an existent, or something.

The being-within-itself of existence is thus the simple reference of existence to its own self, as being-in-itself is. But being-in-itself is this equality with self rather in an immediate manner; in being-in-itself the moment of being is what lies at the ground, and being-for-other stands over against it. This can be put as follows, that being-in-itself is the reference of existence to its own self, not as the existence's own reflection into itself, but as an external one; or only through this, that being-for-other gets severed from the reference to self. — Being-within-itself, on the other hand, is now existence's own being-in-itself; it is its reflection into itself. Existence is the unity which is reality, insofar as this unity has distinct sides, that is, reality is the immediate unity, yet referred to that external reflection which distinguishes distinct sides. Being-within-itself, by contrast, is the reference of existence to itself insofar as the sublating of being-for-other is existence's own; being-for-other passes over on its own self into being-in-itself, and this is thereby no longer immediate being-in-itself, but that which has likewise united itself with its other moment, and in which being-for-other is sublated, or being-within-itself.

Something determines itself further, more closely, as being-for-itself, or thing, substance, subject, and so forth. At the ground of all these determinations lies the negative unity; the reference to self through negation of otherness. Something is this negative unity of being-within-itself as yet only quite indeterminately.

Existence passes over into an existent within its own self, by gaining, as the sublating of being-for-other, this point of negative unity. Existence therefore, as something, is not the immediate unity of being and nothing that is; rather, as being-within-itself it has reference to itself insofar as it is negation. The being of something therefore does not consist in its immediacy, but in the non-being of otherness; within something, then, existence has passed over into the negative to this extent, that the negative now lies at the ground. Something is existence only insofar as it has a determinateness.

B. Determinateness

Existence is being with a non-being. It is being, simple reference to its own self, yet no longer as immediacy, but as negative reference to its own self, and this is what makes up its being. So taken it is something. Here, then, the moment of non-being turns itself outward on existence.

Something, as an existent, first of all distinguishes its moment of negativity from its own self, as its limit.

Thereupon, however, the limit shows itself as the essentiality of something, and is its determinateness, which differentiates itself into determinateness as that which is in itself, into determination, and into determinateness as that which is for-other, into constitution. Determinateness, as the reference of these moments, is quality.

Third, however, quality passes over through constitution into alteration.

1. Limit

1. Something is first an existence enclosed in general; it contains within itself the non-being of otherness; a non-being through which it is, as being-within-itself.

Secondly, as existence it is indeed being-for-other; but being-for-other is taken back into being-in-itself. This means, on the one side, that otherness has not vanished; but because something, precisely on the ground of its having returned into itself, is simple being-within-itself, otherness falls outside it. This other is another something, towards which the something is indifferent; it is, whether this other be, or not be, or however it be. The something is being-in-itself, and indeed over against the other; this being-in-itself makes up its indifference. — The first being-in-itself of existence is immediate being-in-itself; being-within-itself, by contrast, is likewise being-in-itself, yet not as immediate, but a being-in-itself that is negative, over against an other, or the being-in-itself. That has stepped out, into being-for-other. — In this, then, that existence is determined as indifferent, the other first properly steps over against an existence; into otherness, as it appeared earlier, existence had itself passed over; this unity of the two developed into the moments considered, through whose negative unity, being-within-itself, existence severs itself from otherness and sets the two in indifferent reference to each other.

Thirdly, however, because being-within-itself is the non-being of otherness, something is not something indifferent in general; rather, the non-being of the other is an essential moment of its indifference; it is the ceasing of an other in it.

Something therefore contains the three moments 1) its non-being, the other is outside it; it itself is self-equal reference to itself, 2) the other is not an other in general, or in an external reflection, but ceases in the something, something is its non-being; 3) something thereby has non-being itself in it, but as the ceasing of its otherness, and thus as the being of its own self.

It has a limit.

Something has a limit at first only in relation to an other; that limit is the other's non-being, not the something's own; through it, therefore, the something does not limit itself, but its other.

2. But the other is itself a something in general, for it is likewise existence. The limit, then, which something holds towards the other, is at the same time the other's own limit as a something, or it is that other's limit, by which the other holds off the first something as its other, or is a non-being of that something. It is therefore not only the non-being of the other, but of the something as well; it is at the something itself.

Or, immediately, insofar as the something only is as the non-being of the other, it is in its own self non-being, and the limit is just as much that by which it is itself limited.

3. As non-being it is the ceasing of the something, but since it is essentially the ceasing of the other, the something at the same time is through its limit. — The other is likewise the non-being of the something, but if the limit were only this non-being, then something would simply cease in its limit; yet it is the non-being of the something only in such a way that it is at once the non-being of the other, and hence the being of the something.

Insofar, now, as something in its limit is and is not, and these moments are at first taken in immediate distinctness, the non-existence and the existence of the something fall apart from each other. Something has its existence outside its limit; but just so the other too, because it is a something, lies outside that limit. The limit is the middle of the two, in which they cease. They have their existence over beyond one another and beyond their limit; the limit, being what each of them is not, counts for both as the other, and so each has its existence apart from its own non-being.

— According to this diversity of the something from its limit, the line appears to us as line only outside its limit, the point; the surface as surface outside the line; the body as body only outside the surface that bounds it. — This is the side from which limit at first enters representation, — the concept's being-outside-itself, — and in which it is therefore taken up chiefly in spatial objects too.

4. Further, however, the something as it is outside the limit, the unlimited something, is merely existence in general. Outside the limit something is not distinguished from its other; it is only existence, and so it has the same determination as its other; each is only something in general, or each is an other.

But something is something only through being-within-itself; and it is within itself only through the non-being of an other; without limit it is its other. Its being turned outward against an other, the non-being that is its limit, thus makes up what is essential to the something, or its existence. Something is what it is only in its limit.

Being-within-itself, as simple reference to itself, at first shuts otherness and with it the limit itself — as the reference to the other — out of itself and out of the something. But the equality of the something with itself rests on its negative nature; or non-being is here being-in-itself itself; hence the limit is being-within-itself. Above, the being-within-itself of the something was determined thus, that it is being-for-other taken up into being-in-itself; being-in-itself over against an other was the indifference of the something towards an other. But conversely otherness, or the non-being of the something, is thereby posited as being-in-itself, which has no other content or subsistence than the limit itself.

— The point, then, is not the limit of the line merely in the sense that the line ceases in it and is, as existence, outside it; — nor the line the limit of the surface merely in the sense that the surface ceases in the line, and likewise the surface as limit of the body. Rather, the line begins in the point as well; the point is the line's absolute beginning, it constitutes its element, as the line constitutes the element of the surface; the surface that of the body. These limits are thus at the same time the principle of what they limit; as the one, for instance as the hundredth, is a limit, but also an element of the whole hundred.

The limit is therefore not distinguished from the something; this non-being is rather its ground, and makes it what it is; it makes up its being, or its being does not reach out beyond its otherness, beyond its negation. Thus the limit is determinateness.

2. Determinateness

The limit belongs to the something itself; the something has no existence apart from it; the limit is the being-in-itself of the something itself; it is not external to the something's being-within-itself, but is itself a limit that is within itself. Its truth is determinateness in general. — This is the result of the foregoing. — When the limit alters, the something seems still to remain as an existence in general, and the alteration seems to go on outside it, only in the limit. But as the limit is in truth, namely as determinateness, (the qualitative, not yet the quantitative limit) it is that through which something is what it is; when determinateness vanishes, something itself vanishes, or when another determinateness steps into the place of one determinateness, something itself is an other.

Something has a determinateness. In this expression the something and its determinateness are distinguished from each other. But this distinction belongs to external reflection. Something is the determinate; it stands in simple immediate unity with determinateness. Something therefore vanishes in its determinateness; properly speaking, then, one should no longer speak so much of the something as of determinateness. For something is being-within-itself in an immediacy; according to this immediacy it has negation, the limit, only in it, as being-for-other, and something is in itself over against the limit; but in unity with the limit it is sublated, for its immediacy has vanished, and it has passed over into determinateness.

Simple determinateness is the unity of being-within-itself and of the limit. It contains both within itself as sublated, as moments, or it is itself determined in this twofold manner. On the one side it is the limit turned back into itself, on the other side it is also being-within-itself that has passed over into being-for-other, or that is as limit.

a.) Determination

As the limit turned back into itself, determinateness is in itself; it is the determinate as referring only to itself; as the non-being of the other, in such a way that the determinate is not thereby limited itself.

Determinateness on this side may more precisely be called determination. In its determination something rests within its own self; in determination it is what it ought to be. There is indeed an other outside it, yet in such a way that something is not what it is in this reference to an other; rather it is taken back out of the reference to an other into itself. Limit as determination is no longer the referring middle between the something and an other; it belongs to the something alone, which does not hold it in common, but it is the something's reference to its own self.

b.) Constitution

Determination makes up the being-in-itself of the something. But determinateness is not only being-in-itself; as limit it is also being-for-other, or being-within-itself that has passed over into otherness. Determinateness is at first indifference towards an other, and the other falls outside the something. Yet at the same time, since the limit belongs to the something itself, the something has otherness in its own self. In this way determinateness is an external existence of the something, one that is indeed its existence, but that does not belong to its being-in-itself.

Determinateness is thus constitution.

Constituted this way or that, something is grasped not as being within itself, but as standing under external influence and external relation. This determinateness, which does indeed belong to the something, is rather its otherness, but insofar as that otherness is in it. The external reference on which constitution depends, and the being-determined through an other, appears as something contingent, because it appears as an other, as something external. But the something consists in being surrendered to this externality and in having a constitution. — Determination is otherness taken back into itself; precisely thereby otherness, instead of being sublated, has rather been made into the determination of determinateness, into its being-in-itself.

c.) Quality

Determinateness is thus at first the simple limit that is within itself. But it thereby has the two moments that have been considered. Determinateness in this closer reflection is quality, which unites in itself the meaning of determination as well as that of constitution. Quality as this union is the determinate nature of something, not as one resting within itself, but insofar as the something has in it at the same time a manner of its own that determines itself through the reference to an other.

Insofar as, in their separate consideration, determination and constitution were distinguished from each other, something taken according to its determination is indifferent towards its constitution. But the two are essentially moments of one and the same, or more precisely constitution is properly the limit contained in determination itself. Constitution, insofar as it appears at the same time to be grounded in something external, in an other in general, therefore depends on determination as well, and the alien determination is at once determined by the something's own, immanent determination. Conversely constitution belongs to what the something is in itself; with its constitution something alters.

Remark

Quality in this respect is preeminently property, in that it shows itself in an external reference as an immanent determination. For by properties, for instance those of herbs, one understands determinations that are not merely proper to a something in general, but that are proper to it insofar as it thereby comports itself in a peculiar manner in reference to other things, and does not let the alien effects posited in it hold sway within it, but rather shows its restriction as a being-within-itself, and makes that restriction tell in its otherness — although it does not keep that otherness away from itself. The more inert determinatenesses, for instance figure, shape, magnitude, are on the other hand not readily called properties.

Insofar as one speaks of good or bad quality, quality has the meaning of that one moment of it, of constitution. For good and bad are determinations of judgment concerning the agreement of constitution with determination, with the concept. At the same time, however, this constitution is not a merely unessential, detachable externality, or a mere state, but is a determinateness of the being of the matter itself. Constitution is not sundered from determination; rather, as the matter is constituted, so it also is. Quality is just this, that determinateness, distinguished into determination and constitution, is essentially the unity of both moments.

The Qualirung or Inqualirung of a philosophy that goes into the depths, but into a murky depth, refers to determinateness insofar as it is in itself, but is at the same time an other in itself; or it refers to the closer nature of opposition as it is in essence, insofar as opposition makes up the inner nature of quality and essentially its self-movement within itself. In that philosophy Qualirung therefore signifies the movement of a determinateness within its own self, insofar as in its negative nature (in its Qual) it posits and secures itself out of an other, is in general the unrest that it has in its own self, according to which it brings itself forth and maintains itself only in struggle.

3. Alteration

Determinateness is quality, reflected determinateness, insofar as it has the two sides, that of determination and that of constitution.

The latter is determinateness insofar as it is otherness in its own self. The limit, as the being of external determinations, makes up constitution; but it is determinateness itself that is this limit, and the externality is therefore its own externality of its own self. Since, then, something in its determinateness is in its own self its non-being, or since its determinateness is just as much its other as it is its own, a becoming is here posited which is alteration.

Alteration lies necessarily already in existence itself; existence is the unity of being and nothing, it is in itself becoming. But it is becoming that has become an immediate unity. Insofar as it develops itself again into becoming, it is not the abstract moments of being and nothing, into which it falls apart, that make up what passes over, but the moments as proceeding out of existence, out of the unity of being and nothing, as such as are themselves these unities, these moments being the being-within-itself of the something, and the other; — not as moments of external reflection, like being-in-itself and being for other — but as immanent moments of existence itself. In determination, otherness, which at first is as limit, is taken back into simple determinateness, or determination is itself the simple unity of both moments. But constitution is the reference of these moments as being other to one another, or as distinguished, and their reference in one and the same respect; hence their sublating in their own selves.

a) Alteration of Constitution

Alteration at first falls only into constitution; determination is the limit withdrawn from the reference to an other; constitution, by contrast, is the side open to the other, or the side in which the other is as other. To that extent there is still a being-within-itself present in determination, one that is distinct from constitution and from alteration; the something is still present and surrenders only the one of its sides. — Becoming is here more closely determined as alteration for this reason too, that it is not purely abstract moments that stand in reference, but such as are themselves unities of each other, whereby determination maintains itself in the passing over, and whereby here not a vanishing but only a becoming-other is posited.

At first, then, it is constitution that alters in such a way that it becomes only another constitution; for a constitution is a determinate one, and determinateness passes over into alteration. But it is this alteration of determinateness itself that is here considered more closely; determinateness passes over into alteration because it is constitution.

It is therefore the constitution as such that alters; not a constitution, in such a way that constitution as such would remain; hence it must not so much be said that it alters, but rather it is itself the alteration.

b.) The Ought and Restriction

Something maintains itself in the alteration of its constitution; the alteration touches only this unstable surface of otherness, not the determination of the something itself. But it is the constitution of the something that is alteration: that is to say, the otherness of the something, which is in its own self. The constitution of the something is not merely surface; rather the limit is the being-within-itself of the something; or constitution is its determination itself. Above, the two yielded themselves only as different sides for external reflection; but in themselves they are united and undivided in quality; the externality of otherness is the something's own inwardness. Something is determined, it is within itself only through its limit; the limit is the negation of otherness, but thereby otherness is the immanent determination, in itself, of the something itself.

For there is present in the something not merely being-within-itself and its other in general; rather this other of it is its determinateness in itself, namely determination itself. Determination is therefore the being-within-itself that refers to itself, but that, as this being-within-itself, is itself its limit. Being-within-itself, equal to itself, therefore refers to itself as to its own non-being. The limit that thus makes up the determination of the something, but in such a way that it is at once determined as the something's non-being, is restriction.

The being-in-itself of determination, however, in this reference to the limit, namely to itself as restriction, is the ought.

The limit that attaches to existence in general is not restriction. For it to be restriction, existence must at the same time pass out beyond it. Existence must refer to it as to something that is not. The existence of the something lies only quietly, indifferently, as it were alongside its limit. But something passes out beyond its limit only insofar as it is the sublatedness of that limit. And since the limit is determination itself, something thereby passes out beyond its own self.

The ought therefore contains determination doubled, once as determination that is in itself; the other time, however, that same determination as a non-being, as restriction. The ought is determination and the sublatedness of determination itself, and indeed in such a way that just this sublatedness of itself is in it. The ought is thus the reference of determination to itself as to its non-being, or to the non-being that it itself is.

That which ought to be is, and at once is not. Were it, it ought not merely to be. The ought therefore essentially has a restriction. — But further, this restriction is not something alien. That which ought to be is the determination, that is, it is the determinateness of determination itself, which is not. This is what was just now expressed by saying that the ought is determinateness, but equally the sublatedness of this determinateness itself.

What has emerged, then, consists in this: something has a determination; that is, a determinateness which, however, is not to be its limit, not its ceasing, but rather its being-within-itself itself. But it has with this at the same time a limit, or is determined; the sublated limit is preserved. This limit is restriction, and determination is the ought, insofar as determinateness in the simple unity of being-within-itself at once is and is not.

The something's resting within itself in its determination thus lowers itself to the ought, in that the very determinateness which makes up its being-within-itself is at the same time, and in one and the same respect, sublated as well, is as non-being. The restriction of the something is therefore not something outward; rather its own determination is also its restriction.

As ought, something further passes out beyond its restriction, that is, what is not in it, what is sublated, is in it as well; namely the same determinateness, as which it is sublated, is its being-in-itself, and its limit is also not its limit.

As ought, then, something stands elevated over its restriction, yet conversely it possesses its restriction only as ought. Both are inseparable. It has a restriction insofar as it has a determination, and determination is also the sublatedness of restriction.

Remark

The ought has of late played a great role in philosophy, chiefly in reference to morality, and in general also as the ultimate and absolute concept of the identity of equality with oneself and of determinateness.

You can, because you ought, — this expression, which was meant to say a great deal, lies in the concept of the ought. For the ought is the being out beyond the restriction; the limit is sublated in the ought. — But conversely it is just as correct: You cannot, precisely because you ought. For in the ought there lies just as much the restriction as restriction; determinateness makes up determination as being-within-itself; but being-within-itself is essentially as the sublatedness of this determinateness, which is nevertheless being-within-itself itself, and hence determinateness as non-being, as restriction.

In the ought the concept of finitude begins in general, and with it at the same time the passing out beyond finitude, infinity. The ought contains what in further development presents itself as the progress into infinity, in connection with which the nature of the imperfect identity contained in it will be considered more closely.

c.) Negation

1. Existence, determinate being, as the unity of its moments, of being-in-itself and of being-for-other, was above reality.

Determinateness that has become free is, likewise as the unity of determination and of constitution, quality. Over against reality stands negation. Quality makes up the middle and the transition between reality and negation; it contains these two in simple unity. But in negation non-being comes forward as the truth into which reality has passed over.

To the Reelle there also stands opposed the Ideelle, and to the negative the positive. The opposition of the Reelle and the Ideelle will emerge below, with being-for-itself; the opposition of the positive and the negative, however, belongs among the proper determinations of reflection, or is the opposition as it is in essence, and comes forward there. — Insofar as position in general is set over against negation, this position means nothing other than reality.

Just as reality is the same as existence, insofar as existence has in it the moments of being-in-itself and of being-for-other, so negation too may be taken for reflected determinateness, namely according to what has emerged as the truth of that determinateness, namely to be the unity of the ought and of restriction.

Remark

Determinateness in general is negation, (Determinatio est negatio) said Spinoza; — a proposition of thoroughgoing importance; — one that emerged from the consideration of determinateness. For determinateness is essentially the limit and has otherness for its ground; existence is what it is only through its limit; it does not fall outside this its negation. Hence it was necessary that reality passed over into negation; therewith reality makes its ground and essence manifest.

In connection with reality it was noted that the sum total of all realities, if they are thought without limit, becomes the empty nothing. But if they are preserved as determinate realities, then the sum total of all realities becomes just as much the sum total of all negations. This may, since negation has just now determined itself into restriction and finitude, also be called the sum total of all restrictions and finitudes. But restriction and finitude are only this, to sublate themselves; that negation, however, as absolute negativity, is the essential determination of the absolute essence, and the determination higher than reality, will be mentioned provisionally in what immediately follows.

From the proposition that determinateness is negation, the unity of the Spinozist substance, or that there is only One substance, — is a necessary consequence. Thinking and being he had to bring together into one within this unity, since, taken as determinate realities, both are negations, and their infinity or truth lies solely in their unity. He therefore grasped them as attributes, that is, as such as lack any subsistence of their own, any being-in-and-for-itself, and are only as sublated, as moments. — Just as little can the substantiality of individuals hold out against that proposition. For the individual is something limited in all respects; it is individual reference to itself only through this, that it sets limits to everything other; but these limits are thereby also limits of itself, references to an other, and it does not have its existence within itself. The individual is indeed more than merely what is limited on every side; but insofar as it is taken as finite, determinateness essentially asserts itself as negation against the claim that the finite as such should be motionless, something that is, in and for itself, and tears it into the negative movement, out of which, however, there proceeds not its empty nothing but rather, for the first time, its infinity and its being-in-and-for-itself.

2. Determinateness is negation in general. But more precisely negation is the doubled moment of restriction and of the ought.

First: negation is not merely the nothing in general, but negation that is reflected, referred to being-in-itself; the lack as of something, or the restriction; determinateness, posited as what it is in truth, as non-being.

Second: negation as the ought is the determinateness that is in itself, or conversely, the ought is determinateness or negation as being-in-itself. It is to that extent the negation of that first determinateness, which is posited as non-being, as restriction. It is thus negation of negation, and absolute negation.

Thus negation is the genuinely real and being-in-itself. It is this negativity that is the simple, which as sublating of otherness returns into itself; the abstract foundation of all philosophical ideas and of speculative thinking in general, of which one must say that only more recent times have begun to grasp it in its truth. — This simplicity has to step into the place of being, or of every determinateness that is taken in immediate form, as being in and for itself. When negativity or negative nature is spoken of hereafter, what is to be understood by it is not that first negation, the limit, restriction or lack, but essentially the negation of otherness, which, as such, is reference to itself.

Here the negation that is in itself is as yet only the ought, negation of negation indeed, yet in such a way that this negating itself is still the determinateness. It is, namely, the limit or negation which as being-in-itself refers itself to itself as non-being. Both negations, which refer themselves to each other, make up the reference of negation to itself, but they are still others for one another; they bound each other mutually.

These negations, then, which still refer themselves to each other as others, — the negation posited as non-being and the negation that is in itself — the restriction and the ought, make up the (qualitatively) finite and the (qualitatively) infinite, and their reference to each other.

C. (Qualitative) Infinity

1. Finitude and Infinity

Existence is determinate; and determinateness posits itself as negation and restriction through this, that as a determinateness which is within itself it at the same time goes out beyond itself, and refers itself to itself as to its negation. In this way existence is not merely determinate but limited; finite, and it is not merely finite, but it is finitude.

Insofar as we say of things that they are finite, what is understood by this is not merely that they contain a determinateness, — for quality can be taken as determination or also as reality, — but that it is not being, rather non-being as restriction, that makes up their nature.

But what is determinate is finite only in the ought; that is to say, insofar as it goes out beyond itself as beyond its negation. The finite is negation insofar as it is negation to itself, refers itself to itself as to non-being, insofar therefore as the restriction is by it just as much sublated. It is, namely, the limit insofar as this makes up being-in-itself, or the determination, that is to say, just as much insofar as it refers itself to itself, and so is equal to itself. But in this reference of negation to itself consists the sublating of the negation of it, or of its inequality. Determinateness is therefore negation and finitude only insofar as at the same time there is present in it the reference to itself, equality with itself, the sublating of the restriction. The finite is therefore itself this sublating of itself; it is itself this, to be infinite.

As the concept of the infinite has thus emerged, it is the otherness of otherness, the negation of negation, the reference to itself through the sublating of determinateness. — The infinite in this its simple concept can become the second definition of the absolute; this concept is deeper than becoming; but here it is still saddled with a determinateness; and the main thing is to keep the genuine concept of infinity apart from bad infinity, reason's infinite apart from the understanding's infinite.

It first showed itself in determinate existence that existence, in its being-in-itself, determines itself as finite and goes out beyond itself as beyond the restriction. It is therefore in general the nature of the finite itself to go out beyond itself, to negate the negation and to become infinite. The infinite therefore does not stand above the finite as something finished on its own account, so that the finite would have and keep its abiding outside of it or beneath it. Nor is it we, merely as a subjective reason, who go out beyond the finite into the infinite. As when it is said that the infinite is the concept of reason, and that through reason we raise ourselves above the temporal and the finite, this happens quite without prejudice to finitude, which that elevation, remaining external to it, in no way concerns. But insofar as the finite is itself raised into infinity, it is just as little an alien force that does this to it; rather this is its nature, to refer itself to itself as to a restriction, and thus to go out beyond that restriction. For as has been shown, the restriction only is insofar as it is gone out beyond. Infinity in general therefore does not consist in the sublating of finitude in general; rather the finite is only this, to become that itself through its own nature. Infinity is its determination, or that which it is in itself.