A. The Relation of Self-subsistent Measures

1. Neutrality

A something that is self-subsistent through its measure is in itself an immediate ratio, and this makes up its nature and the ground of its difference from others. It is its determination or its being-in-itself; insofar as it is a ratio, it is a quality. But then this something also refers itself to others, and yet in this reference it is self-subsistent, or preserves itself therein; thus it specifies the external quantum that comes to it. — This side is its constitution or being-for-other. As the relation of its determination to externality it is itself a quality. The something is a self-subsistent one in that it is the unity of these its qualities. It is therefore not here merely a quality that stands in reference to another quality.

The immediate ratio which the something is at its own self is now its genuine specific quantum. The exponent of this ratio is an immediate quantum, only in comparison with other ratios of the same kind; but this determination through another is no concern of the exponent; it is at its own self, in that it is ratio within itself. — Insofar as its sides alter as quanta, it preserves itself in them, like an immediate ratio at large; since the one side is the unit, the other is the amount, and what alters herein is only the unit, not the specific amount or the exponent. (-- Such a measure is the specific gravity of bodies.)

But furthermore this measure has a side of bearing towards others. This bearing concerns the amount. Through it, namely, the self-subsistent compares itself with others; it has therein externality at it, and thus sets itself into reference according to the exponent of the ratio it is in itself. Yet in this the exponent is essentially exponent, of qualitative nature; its reference to others is neither the indifferent immediacy of one quantum over against other quanta; nor a likewise external, indifferent alteration of it. Rather, since it is a quantum determined in itself, or quantitative quality, it bears itself as measure towards the external quantum and specifies it. But conversely, insofar as it is itself quantum, it is therein likewise altered. It is a reciprocal specification which sets out from immediately determined measures and is therefore not a measure determined in and for itself, but an external one. The specific bearing towards others is therefore indeed a negative directedness upon the immediate measure, for what is determined in itself steps through this bearing into externality; but the immediate measure makes up the foundation of the relation of reference that has arisen.

This reference is a neutralization of both sides; through their quantitative nature, which lies at the foundation of the reference, they continue themselves into each other, whereby their indifferent difference is posited, and since therein there lies at the same time the qualitative determination which they have, this determination too is modified. The unity of the qualitative is here not the passing over of the one quality into the other, nor is their result the merely negative of their mutual sublating; rather it is here posited that in their sublatedness they also preserve themselves; for their difference, being quantitative, is an indifferent one and one in which what is distinguished continues itself also into its otherness and preserves itself in its change. The self-subsistent therefore does not indeed remain in the neutralization what it immediately is; it exhibits its being-determined-in-itself only as a mode, as a manner and way of being-for-other; but conversely its alteration is just as much only a mode for it, and does not concern its determination in and for itself.

2. Specification of Neutrality

The fundamental measure of something self-subsistent, then, (its weight within itself, or its peculiar gravity,) is first a quantum, and in the combination which it enters into with others this quantum is altered; this quantum is second an exponent; it makes up the quality of the self-subsistent, and this quality is thereby altered; but third this alteration is only a modification, it is only as amount that it gets specified, and amount it is only in comparison with another. Now because the self-subsistent is indifferent towards this alteration in the neutralization, it enters with several into such neutral combinations. If it were of merely qualitative nature, then in the other it would have only its non-being; a quality has its determinateness only in one other. Only when wrapped up in the quantitative is the difference from an other also indifferent to it. The self-subsistent is not one quality but a negative unity of qualities, and therein it is an essential quantum. These combinations with several are now different ratios, which accordingly have different exponents. Only in the comparison with others does the self-subsistent have the exponent of its being-determined-in-itself; the neutrality with others makes up its genuine comparison with them, for through its own self it is its comparing with them. — The exponents of these ratios, however, are different, and it thereby exhibits its qualitative exponent as the series of these different amounts to which it is the unit; — as a series of specific comportment towards others. The qualitative exponent is in and for itself not an immediate quantum. The self-subsistent therefore distinguishes itself from others through the peculiar series of exponents which it, taken as unit, forms with other self-subsistents, whereas another self-subsistent, brought into reference with those very same ones and taken as unit, forms a different series.

The self-subsistent is, as has been considered, the unit for these exponents or amounts which express its comportment towards another. For it is the being-determined-in-itself over against its constitution, that is, over against itself as quantum. Its quantum as such is its externality, which gets modified; it therefore exhibits its quantitative being-determined not in one quantum, but rather exhibits this quantum as something alterable, and accordingly displays its being-determined-in-itself in a series of exponents. The ratio of this series within itself makes up the qualitative aspect of the self-subsistent, which in this manifoldness of quantitative determination is the unity with itself. — Insofar, then, as a self-subsistent forms a series of exponents with a series of self-subsistents, it is at first distinguished from a self-subsistent not of this series, but from another one with which it is compared, only by this, that the latter makes a different series of exponents with the same self-subsistents. But in this way these two self-subsistents would not be comparable, insofar as each is to be regarded as unit over against its exponents, and the two series arising in this way are indeterminately other ones. The self-subsistent, however, is not determined in itself as the unit which is a simple one, but essentially as ratio; it is indeed a one over against the number series of its exponents; a unit determined in itself it is neither as this one nor in the ratio to one of them, for then it would have its determinateness in a quantum as such; rather it has its being-determined-in-itself only in the ratio of the series, in the ratio which the series has within its own self. This series is its unit, and insofar as the other self-subsistent comparable with it is of the same kind in general, namely insofar as it likewise has, among the self-subsistents of the other sides, those with which it neutralizes itself, it too has its being-determined-in-itself in that series. But this series is determined in itself only insofar as its members have a constant ratio among themselves towards both; so it is their common unit. In this common unit alone lies the comparability of the two self-subsistents, which were assumed not as neutralizing themselves with each other but as indifferent towards one another. They are in this respect quanta over against each other, but as such they are comparable only in the common unit that has been pointed out.

Those self-subsistents, however, which neutralize themselves with the ones standing over against them that are merely compared among themselves, and which yield the series of exponents of the comportment of the latter, are in their own selves likewise self-subsistents; each of them is to that extent likewise to be taken as a unit which has the series of its exponents in the two first-named ones, merely compared among themselves, or rather in the indeterminately many, which exponents are the comparison numbers of those first-named ones among themselves; just as, conversely, the comparison numbers of the second series among themselves are likewise the series of exponents for the first series. Both sides are in this way series of numbers, in which each is first a unit over against the series standing over against it, in which series it has its quantum as a series of exponents; second, it is itself one of the exponents for the series standing over against it; and third, a comparison number in relation to the remaining numbers of its own series, and as this amount it has its being-determined-in-itself, or its unit, in the series standing over against it. — Insofar, then, as each unity-with-itself that comports itself as self-subsistent is determined in itself, it has this its unity in a series of exponents of its comportment standing over against it. Insofar as it is quantum or amount, it is a specified quantum among others, and thereby distinguishes itself from them. Its being-determined-in-itself, then, is the series standing over against it, which for the others of its own side is only the common unit; through its being-determined-in-itself it is therefore equal to the others. But it is an other over against them, or it has a comparison number and an indifferent quantum, insofar as it is specified and posited by an alien unit. Into this externality of its own self, then, the nature of the self-subsistent measure has inverted itself, insofar as it was supposed to be an immediate ratio which would be specifying over against another and would preserve itself indifferent within this specification. Its reference to itself was supposed not to suffer from its reference to another; but its reference to itself is at first an immediate ratio; its indifference towards another consists in the quantum; therefore its qualitative side is directed against its own self; its comportment towards another, as the truly qualitative, becomes that which makes up the specific determination of this self-subsistent; that determination therefore consists simply in the way and manner of comporting itself towards an other, and this way and manner is determined as much by the other as by the self-subsistent itself.

The externality into which the specific self-subsistence inverts itself is, considered more closely, the transition of the qualitative into the quantitative, and conversely of the quantitative into the qualitative, that has here set in. In measure they are in immediate unity generally; in real measure, in the specific self-subsistence, they are distinguished, but for the sake of their essential unity this distinguishing becomes a passing over of the one moment into the other. The self-subsistent measures are in themselves immediately determined; so they are quanta; but this determination overturns into a qualitative ratio towards others, into neutralization. Towards this negative unity they are indifferent, and it passes over into quantitative determination; in this reference they stand with several; these several are determined through the qualitative reference towards each other; but their difference is only the diversity of quantum. — But they are thus only several, and different quanta in general over against one another; the specific determinateness, the return of this comportment into itself, is not yet at hand.

Only, the neutralization of self-subsistents standing over against each other is their qualitative unity in such a way that the one has not passed over into the other within it, so that there is not merely one negation in general, but both are posited negatively within it; or in such a way that, since each preserves itself indifferently within it, its negation is in turn also negated. Their qualitative unity is thus an excluding unity that is for itself. The exponents, which are comparison numbers among themselves, first acquire their truly specific determinateness in the moment of their excluding one another. — Only so is their difference not merely the indifferent difference of quantum, but also of qualitative nature. At the same time, however, it is grounded, as is evident, upon the quantitative; namely, the self-subsistent comports itself towards a several of its qualitatively other side only because in this comportment it is at the same time indifferent; and through the quantitativity of the neutral reference this reference is in its nature infinite, not merely negation in general but negation of negation; an excluding unity that is for itself. Thereby the affinity of a self-subsistent towards the several of the other side is not merely an indifferent reference but an excluding one, an elective affinity.

3. Elective Affinity

In elective affinity the specifically self-subsistent has completely lost its first character, that of being immediately determined in itself; it is determined in itself only as a negative unity that is for itself. This unity has shown itself, as the passing-over of the quantitative and the qualitative that has gone back into itself, to be the absolute unity of the quantitative and of the qualitative. It is thereby so determined that, as a difference quantitative within itself, it falls apart within itself indifferently towards its own self, or, as qualitative within itself, comports itself negatively towards itself, — both are here the same, — and specifies itself in the manner shown. In this repelling the ratios in part separate into their universal qualitative sides, and in part these sides specify one another and thereby themselves, and exclude each other. Only out of this has the self-subsistent then emerged as a ratio in which what appears as an indifferent quantum is at the same time only a moment. This self-subsistent has the doubled reference of comporting itself neutralizingly towards another, and on the one hand of not passing over immediately into the other within this its self-sublating reference, but merely of modifying itself, and on the other hand of comporting itself as referring purely to itself, of excluding other ratios from this its modification and of keeping neutrality with them away from itself. In this comportment towards an other the self-subsistence consists, and indeed in such a way that it is just as much the comportment of the others towards it, or in general of all towards all. Further, every moment is just as much of a qualitative as of a quantitative nature; and so too is the last determination, the difference of those that exclude one another being a difference of quantum.

The continuity of a specific moment with its other is neutralization; it is also of a negative nature, specifying and excluding. But what is excluded from this elective affinity is at the same time one of the exponents; it is distinguished as quantum; and so what does the excluding is likewise a different quantum. In this side of excluding comportment the numbers have lost their continuity and their capacity for running together with one another; it is the more or less that has acquired this negative character, and that gives the precedence to the one exponent over others, and among these again to one over the rest. Only, since at the same time it is again merely quanta that exclude one another, a moment which can be regarded as self-subsistent puts itself, in excluding fashion, into specific neutrality with an exponent that is a more for it; but it is again also indifferent to a moment to receive this neutralizing quantum from several moments standing over against it, from each according to its specific determinateness over against the other. Although the excluding comportment of these is here what determines, this negative comportment nevertheless also suffers this inroad from the quantitative side.

Real measure therefore began from a direct ratio determined in itself, the ratio of the units, of what is simply determined in itself on the two sides, a ratio which as the immediate one was supposed to lie firmly at the base and to distinguish itself from the specifying, the qualifying ratio of the amounts. But it has shown itself that rather only this specifying ratio, which determines itself as comportment towards others, is the total ratio, and that that first immediate one passed over into this other. The units determined in themselves, which made up the sides of the direct ratio, have themselves become amounts, such as have their unit determined in itself in a series standing over against them, and as self-differentiating, excluding amounts are only members of a specified series. The immediate qualitative unit of the first ratio itself has passed over into the negative excluding unity, which is not a reference of immediate units determined in themselves, but a specifying of them. What was a neutralization of immediately present self-subsistents is a reference of quanta which have their existence solely in this qualifying negation, the same negation that also makes up their neutralization. What is herewith at hand is the negative reference of the immediate unit of the ratio and the specified unit, and thereby the qualitative difference of the quantitative and the qualitative itself. That immediate unit is thereby determined as indifferent immediacy in general, as quantum as such, and the specific as the qualitative. Since, further, the ratios now stand under these determinations and these determinations are referred simply to one another, there is in general an overturning of indifferent, merely quantitative comportment, and conversely a passing-over of the specific being-determined into the merely external ratio; — a series of ratios that are now of merely quantitative nature, now specific ones and measures.

Remark

The chemical substances are such measures, or moments of measure, as have just now resulted, ones that have what makes up their determination solely in their comportment towards others. Acids and alkalis, or bases in general, appear as things immediately determined in themselves, but at the same time rather as incomplete bodily elements, as constituents which properly do not exist for themselves, but have only this concrete existence, namely to sublate their isolated subsistence and to combine with an other. Their difference, by which they are self-subsistent over against one another, consists not in immediate qualities but in the quantitative way and manner of their comportment. This difference, moreover, does not stop at the chemical opposition between acid and alkali, or base in general, but is specified onward into a measure of saturation, and its seat is the specific determinateness belonging to the quantity of the mutually neutralizing substances. This determination of quantity with respect to saturation makes up the qualitative nature of a substance, it makes it into what it is for itself; the number that expresses this is essentially one among several exponents for a unit standing over against it. — Such a substance stands to another in so-called affinity. Insofar as this reference were to remain of a purely qualitative nature, then — as with the reference of the magnetic poles or of the electricities — the one determinateness would be merely the negative of the other, and the two would not also be at the same time indifferent towards each other. But because the reference is also of a quantitative nature, each of these substances is capable of neutralizing itself with several, and is not restricted to one standing over against it. It is not just the acid and the alkali or base that stand towards each other, but acids and alkalis or bases. They characterize themselves over against one another, within the difference of acids from acids and of alkalis from alkalis, according as their affinities comport themselves exclusively towards each other and one has the precedence over another, since taken by itself an acid can enter into a combination with all the alkalis, and conversely. It therefore makes up the chief difference of one acid over against another whether it has a closer affinity to a base than another has. And the closer affinity rests upon the difference of the multitude of it that suffices to saturate a qualitative moment standing over against it; it is therefore a ratio number through which the specific property of such a substance is expressed.

Concerning the chemical affinities of acids and alkalis, Richter and Guyton have found the law that when two neutral solutions are mixed and a separation thereby arises, the products are likewise neutral. It follows from this that the multitudes of two alkaline bases which are required for the saturation of one acid are needed in the same ratio for the saturation of another; in general, once one takes an alkali as unit and settles the series of ratio numbers in which the various acids saturate that same alkali, this series turns out the same for every other alkali, save only that the various alkalis are to be taken over against one another in different amounts; — amounts which on their side again form just such a constant series of exponents for each of the acids standing over against them, since they relate to each single acid in the same ratio as to every other. — Fischer has brought out these series from Richter's works in their simplicity (see his notes to the translation of Berthollet's Abhandlung über die Gesetze der Verwandtschaft in der Chemie, p. 232, and Berthollet, Statique chimique, Part I, p. 134 ff.)

As is well known, Berthollet has further modified the general representation of elective affinity through the concept of the efficacy of a chemical mass. This modification has no influence on the quantitative ratios of the chemical laws of saturation themselves, but only on the qualitative moment of exclusive elective affinity. Because the foundation of the qualitative comportment consists in determinations of quantity, this comportment is weakened by the indifferent nature of these. If for example two acids act upon an alkali, and the one which has a greater affinity to it is also present in the quantum capable of saturating the quantum of the base, then according to the representation of elective affinity only this saturation ensues; the other acid remains wholly without effect and excluded from the neutral combination. According to that concept of the efficacy of a chemical mass, by contrast, each of the two is effective in a ratio compounded of the multitude of it present and its capacity for saturation, or affinity. Berthollet's investigations have specified the closer circumstances under which the efficacy of the chemical mass is sublated, so that an acid more strongly akin appears to drive out the other, weaker one and to exclude its action, and thus to be at work in the sense of elective affinity. He has shown that it is circumstances, for instance the strength of cohesion, the insolubility in water of the salts formed, under which that excluding takes place, and not the nature of the agents themselves, — circumstances whose effect can in turn be sublated by other circumstances, for instance temperature. Through the removal of these hindrances the chemical mass comes into efficacy, and what appeared as purely qualitative excluding, as elective affinity, shows itself to reside merely in external modifications.

What, in the presentation of the text, are the immediate self-subsistent measures, the ratios determined in themselves which distinguish themselves from their comportment towards others, is represented by the specific gravities of bodies. — Within their own selves they are a ratio of weight to volume. The ratio exponent which expresses the determinateness of one specific gravity in distinction from others is at first a determinate quantum only of comparison; something that is a ratio external to them within the referring of an external reflection, and that is not grounded upon their own qualitative comportment towards a unit standing over against them. But since these differences, as determination in general, have a specifying unity lying at their base, and since determinate qualifying is an identity with self within its differentiating, a rule, — there is the task at hand of cognizing the ratio exponents of the series of specific gravities as a system deriving from a rule which specifies an arithmetical progression into a series of harmonic nodes; to every such node an exponent would have to correspond which is the quantum of the specific gravity of an available body. In this way the simple numbers of the specific gravities, — numbers which taken by themselves have a conceptless immediacy and can therefore display no order, — would appear as the ultimate results of ratios in which the specifying rule lying at the base would be recognizable. — The same demand is at hand for the cognition of the chemical affinity series adduced above.

The specific gravities, although at first they seem to have no qualitative ratio to one another, nevertheless likewise show themselves to stand in a qualitative reference. When bodies are chemically combined, or merely amalgamated or synsomatized, (even already when only the temperature alters) the union likewise shows itself as a neutralization of the specific gravities. As is well known, the volume even of the mixture of blended fluids or bases that are chemically indifferent to one another, properly speaking, is not of the same magnitude as the sum of the volume of the mixed constituents before their mixing. Within that mixture they mutually modify the quantum of their determinateness with which they enter into the reference, and in this way make themselves known as qualitative determinations over against each other. Here, then, the quantum of specific gravity expresses itself not merely as a fixed comparison number, but as a ratio number which, being displaceable, enters with others into a particular neutrality.

B. Nodal Line of Measure-Relations

What is at hand is the measure-relation which proves itself to be exclusive and thereby self-subsistent; the preference that the side of the relation grants to one of its exponents over others rests upon the quantum of that exponent as against the others. The more or less is what excludes, the qualitative. Conversely, however, it is the specific through which such a more or less is determined. The qualitative, which in this manner makes itself into a quantitative difference, becomes something external, something transient. At hand at large is the transition of the specific into the merely quantitative relation, and of the quantitative into the specific relation. Inasmuch as the qualitative relation makes itself into a quantitative difference, it subsists on the one hand in this difference; it remains therein what it is, and the quantitative is the indifference of its subsistence; it is this unity of the two, wherein the quantitative is determined through the specific, that makes up something self-subsistent. On the other hand, however, it is thereby altered; the quantitative is its other. Conversely, the quantitative for its part just as much makes up the foundation of the specific relation. Through the quantitative moment the self-subsistent maintains itself in its otherness; on the other hand, however, the quantitative moment in its unity with the specific is likewise altered. — Each of the two moments therefore comes forward as the determining one, in which the other is only as sublated, and thereby each is also as sublated.

The final determination of the measure-relation was that, as excluding, it is specific. But this repelling exclusion is in part in and for itself a reference to what is excluded and a mutual attraction of the two; in part, however, insofar as the indifferent subsistence of what is excluded is the quantitative moment, what excludes is indifferently distinguished from the other and continues itself into it. It continues itself into it on the one part as maintaining itself; its other is something quantitative, hence an indifferent difference which does not affect the specific; on the other hand, however, it is qualitatively distinguished from it; in this its otherness it becomes another relation and thereby another measure.

The specifying unity determines, as has emerged, numerical ratios which are of a qualitative nature and are measures. But the sides, or likewise the exponents, of these are amounts at large, hence what is in itself indeterminate and external. On the one part measure remains unaltered in this difference of its quantity; on the other part it is altered, and indeed not through itself, nor in such a way that it would maintain itself in its otherness as in that to which it refers; rather the quantitative into which it passes over is constitution, what is external in itself; it has therefore merely gone under therein. Yet since the quantitative itself has at the same time just as much a qualitative nature, another quantitative ratio becomes once again a measure too, and one determined in itself, which does not come from externality and mere constitution but hangs together with the preceding measure and stands in qualitative reference to it through a rule. What is at hand, then, is this doubled character. The transition from one measure into another is external, unconnected, the one is without the other, each appears as an immediate; they are distinguished by a more and less, and this is their reference in comparison, which is external and indifferent to them. But they also have a rule lying at their foundation, and they bear themselves towards one another as qualitative differences; for quantum has its determinateness in specification.

The self-subsistent measures, then, distinguished from one another both merely quantitatively and qualitatively, both wholly external to one another and determined through a rule, form a nodal line of measures upon a scale of the more and the less. A measure-relation is at hand; this is a self-subsistent existence, a reality qualitatively distinguished from others. Such an existence, because it rests upon a ratio of quanta, stands at the same time open to externality and to quantum-alteration, and to that extent what alters it is an indeterminate other at large, contingencies, external circumstances. It has a latitude within which it remains indifferent towards this alteration and does not change its quality. But a point of this change of the quantitative ratio sets in at which the quality is changed, or at which quantum proves to be specifying, where such another quantitative ratio takes place as is itself measure and thereby a new quality and a new something. Insofar as the preceding relation refers itself qualitatively to its other, the quantitative, in which it founders, inasmuch as the qualitative and the quantitative at large bear themselves qualitatively towards each other, so too is the relation that has stepped into the place of the first determined by the first. But this new something bears itself just as indifferently towards the preceding one, for their difference is the external one of quantum; it has therefore come forth not out of the preceding one but immediately out of itself. The new quality, or the new something, is subjected to the same going-on of its alteration, and so forth into infinity.

Insofar as the going-on from one quality runs within the steady continuity of quantity, the ratios drawing near to a qualifying point are, quantitatively regarded, distinguished only by the more and the less. On this side the alteration is a gradual one. But gradualness concerns merely what is external about the alteration, not what is qualitative about it. The preceding quantitative ratio, which is infinitely close to the one that follows, is still another reality. From the qualitative side, accordingly, the merely quantitative going-on of gradualness, which is no limit at its own self, is absolutely broken off, and since the newly entering quality is, for the sake of its quantitative difference itself, one indeterminately other than the vanishing quality, an indifferent one, the transition is a leap; the vanished quality and the newly entering one are wholly external. — One likes to make an alteration comprehensible to oneself through the gradualness of the transition; but gradualness is rather precisely the merely indifferent change, precisely the opposite of the qualitative one. In gradualness the coherence of the two realities, — they are taken as states, or as self-subsistent things, — is rather sublated; it is posited that neither is the limit of the other but that the one is simply external to the other, that within the merely quantitative going-on there show themselves ratios of quanta which are qualitatively distinguished from those immediately preceding and following them , and which, over against those merely external, qualitatively indifferent ones, present themselves as specific.

Remark

The natural number system is already such a nodal line of qualitative moments, which come to the fore within a merely external going-on. On the one part it is a merely quantitative going forwards and backwards, a perpetual adding-on or taking-away, so that every number stands in the same arithmetical ratio to the one preceding it and the one following it as these do to the ones preceding and following them, and so forth. But the numbers arising in this way also stand in a specific ratio to others preceding or following, either that of being such a multiple of one of them as a whole number expresses, or that of being power or root. — In the musical ratios a harmonic ratio sets in upon the scale of quantitative going-on by way of a quantum, without this quantum having for itself, upon the scale, any other ratio to its predecessor and its successor than these in turn have to theirs. While the tones that follow seem to withdraw ever further from the keynote, or numbers through the arithmetical going-on seem merely to become still more other, all at once there comes forth instead a return, a surprising accord, which was not qualitatively prepared by what immediately preceded but appears as an actio in distans, as a reference to something remote. The going-on among merely indifferent ratios, which do not change the preceding specific reality, or which form no such reality at all, interrupts itself all at once, and since in quantitative respect it is continued in the same manner, a specific ratio thus sets in by way of a leap.

In chemical combinations there occur everywhere, with the progressive change of the mixture-ratios, such qualitative nodes and leaps that two materials at particular points of the mixture-scale form products of particular qualities. These products are not distinguished from one another merely by a more and less, nor are they already at hand along with the ratios lying close to those nodal ratios, perhaps only in a weaker degree; rather they are bound to such points themselves. For instance, the combinations of oxygen and nitrogen give the various nitrogen oxides and nitric acids, which come forth only at determinate quantitative ratios of the mixture and have essentially different qualities, so that at mixture-ratios lying in between no combinations and specific concrete existences result. — The metal oxides, for instance the lead oxides, arise at certain quantitative points in the course of oxidation, and are marked off from one another by colour and by further qualities. They do not shade over into one another by degrees; rather the ratios that lie between those nodes do not occur as a specific existence, they are incapable of yielding a product. Without having passed through intermediate ratios, a specific combination steps forward which rests upon a measure-relation and has qualities of its own. — Or water, in changing its temperature, does not thereby become merely more or less warm, but passes through the states of hardness, of drippable liquidity and of elastic liquidity; these different states do not set in gradually, rather it is precisely the merely gradual going-on of the temperature-change that is at these points interrupted and checked all at once, and the onset of another state is a leap. — All birth and death, instead of being a continued gradualness, are rather an absolute breaking-off of it, and the leap out of the quantitative into the qualitative.

There is no leap in nature; and ordinary representation, when it is to comprehend a coming-to-be or ceasing-to-be, supposes, as has already been recalled, that it has comprehended it by representing it as a gradual emerging or vanishing. It has shown itself, however, that the alterations of being at large are not only the passing-over of one quantum into another quantum, but a transition from the qualitative into the quantitative and conversely, a becoming-other which is a breaking-off of the gradual and a qualitatively-other over against the preceding existence. — Thus water does not become hard bit by bit through chilling, in such a way that it would turn pulpy and stiffen by degrees up to the consistency of ice; rather it is hard all at once; even when it already has the full temperature of the freezing point, yet stands at rest, it still has its full liquidity, and a slight shaking brings it into the state of hardness. — Underlying the gradualness of coming-to-be is the representation that what comes to be is already sensibly, or in general actually, at hand, only not yet perceptible on account of its smallness, just as, with the gradualness of vanishing, that non-being, or the other that steps into its place, is likewise at hand, only not yet noticeable; — at hand, that is, not in the sense that the other is contained in itself within the other that is at hand, but that it is at hand as existence, only unnoticeably. Thereby coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be at large are sublated, or the in-itself, the inner, in which something is prior to its existence, is converted into a smallness of external existence, and the essential difference, or the difference of concept, into an external, mere difference of magnitude. — Making a coming-to-be or a ceasing-to-be comprehensible out of the gradualness of the alteration has the tediousness proper to tautology, because it has what comes to be or ceases to be already wholly finished beforehand, and turns the alteration into a mere change of an external difference, whereby it is in fact nothing but a tautology.

In the moral sphere, insofar as it is to be considered within the sphere of being, the same transition of the quantitative into the qualitative takes place; or different qualities ground themselves upon a diversity of quantum. It is a more or less through which the measure of frivolity is overstepped and something wholly other, crime, comes forth, through which right passes over into wrong, virtue into vice. — So too do states acquire, through their difference of magnitude, when the rest is assumed to be equal, a different qualitative character. Laws and constitution become something other when the compass of the state and the amount of its citizens expand. The state has a measure of its magnitude, driven out beyond which it falls apart within itself without holding, under the very constitution which at a different compass made up its good fortune and its strength.

C. The Measureless

Measure is magnitude that is in itself, which withstands the externality and indifference of immediate quantum and maintains itself against it. But this indifferent self-subsistence of the specific measures rests upon quantitative difference, and is therefore capable of ascending and descending along the scale of quantum upon which the ratios change; a something or a quality is driven out beyond itself into the measureless, and founders through the mere change of its quantum. Magnitude is the indifferent external constitution at which an existence can be seized and through which it can be destroyed.

The qualitative relation passes over into merely quantitative ratios which have no negative unity and are thereby no qualitative ratios; the change that has set in along with them is not a change of quality. But conversely this at first indifferent externality of the ratio becomes once again a qualifying determinateness and so forth into infinity. To that extent the bad infinity of the infinite progress is at hand. — The measureless consists in the merely quantitative into which a measure passes over; quantum as such is the measureless. But since conversely the measureless quantitative ratio itself becomes once more a specific one, the measureless thus sublates itself again at its own self. What is at hand, then, is not only the negation of the specific relation but also the negation of the quantitative going-on itself. The infinite is this negation of both moments; it is the absolute determination which they lack. The specific relation is at first what is determined in itself, because as a relation it has difference at its own self, and because its sides too are not immediate magnitudes, not units as in the immediate direct ratio, but specified, posited determinations of quantity. But this being-determined in itself does not hold; it continues itself with its other and passes over into the merely quantitative difference; a difference which consists in immediate quanta not specified through the negative unity; this difference, however, rather goes back into the specific relation. Neither of the two, then, is absolute being-determined. This infinity accordingly consists at large in the negation of both sides. But at the same time this negation is not the beyond of each, an infinity situated outside them or merely their inner infinity, but their infinity posited at their own selves. — The qualitative infinity, namely, was the breaking-forth of the infinite at the finite, the immediate transition and the vanishing of the this-side in its beyond. Quantitative infinity, by contrast, is the continuity of quantum, a continuity of it out beyond itself. The qualitatively finite becomes the infinite; the quantitatively finite has its beyond at its own self, and points beyond itself. But the infinity of the specification of measure is at its own self this totality, which does not have the other as a beyond of itself but posits, in its negation that goes out beyond itself, only this: that it is totality, that it does not have or posit an other over against itself. The specific relation is the negative unity of quantities which are determined through it; as this negative unity it is the self-subsistent, indifferent subsistence. But that into which it has specified itself are determinations of quantity; it therefore does not pass over into the quantitative ratio but only refers itself therein to itself; and measurelessness, or its negation, namely the quantitative aspect of the relation, is its negative reference to itself. Its infinity is accordingly the sublating not of itself, but of its being an other; this is the negation of it as that through which it is. The qualitative relation, then, as reference of specific quantities, thereby makes itself external, makes itself into a subsistence devoid of quality; but it is precisely this its negation through which it is what makes up its specific constitution. — This is its nature, but it is at the same time at hand within the infinite progress. Namely, the specific relation, as indifferent towards itself, repels itself away from itself and makes itself into another specific relation. This is another quantitative ratio; both are therefore indifferent towards each other, and their qualitative reference is sublated. But precisely thereby they are only externally distinguished; the reference to the other is thus a reference to what is not distinguished from it, to itself, as to its negation. This repelling of the specific away from itself is its self-subsistence; this consists, then, in referring itself to its other, which is only quantitatively distinguished, in such a way that in its negation it is what it is. — So conversely the quantitative determination overturns into specific determination, but because the latter is at its own self the quantitative, the quantitative maintains itself in its becoming-other, and is thus in its constitution what it is according to its determination: to be in its negation what it is.

The infinite progress as such consists only in this, that the specific self-subsistent passes over into the quantitative and the latter into the former, and that in this passing-over the passing-over sublates itself, inasmuch as the new relation is once again as an immediate, indifferent one. But infinity itself is the unity of the qualitative and the quantitative, a unity that repels itself away from itself and immediately is only this repelling itself. — The quantitative and the qualitative are in immediate measure an immediate unity. But they are just as much qualitatively opposed to each other, each is what the other is not; thus in the infinite progress they are the determinations of the relations over against one another. But in this qualitative determination each of them is at the same time, simply at its own self, the passing-over into its other. This passing-over is, considered according to form, the same through which quality at large becomes quantity and quantity becomes quality; namely, the specific aspect of the relation, as excluding repulsion, coalesces into one with what is excluded, or becomes attraction and thereby quantity. Conversely quantity, as externality in itself, which within the progress becomes the externality of its own self, has thereby returned into itself, and quantum is, as what it is in itself, quality.

But what is at hand is not only this passing-over of quality and quantity into each other, which shows itself at them as the determinations of being; rather it comes back here in the reference of the two; their passing-over into each other happens upon the ground of their unity. It is a passing-over which is at the same time the recoil of itself against itself, and which sublates itself. The qualitative, namely, passes over into the quantitative at first as into its other; but here the latter is itself as such what is in itself the passing-over into the qualitative ; — and so reciprocally. Each, then, passes over into its other, which, however, sublates itself at its own self and is only the becoming towards its other. Inasmuch as each thus becomes an other, it rather sublates only this, being an other; in its change it therefore comes together only with itself.

Inasmuch, then, as the passing-over of specifically self-subsistent things into each other is at the same time the negating of this passing-over as a becoming-other, that which changes is no self-subsistence; the alteration is only the change of a state, and what passes over remains in itself the same. The quantitative reference, the specific aspect of the difference of the qualitative and the quantitative, is sublated in this infinity. Just as at first the immediate measure-relation sublated itself in specific self-subsistence, so has the latter now likewise vanished, inasmuch as it is reduced to a state. It was supposed to be at large the sublated immediate measure-relation; the quantitative within it was supposed to be something qualitatively determined, and, as excluding negative unity with itself, a being-for-itself absolutely determined in itself. But this self-subsistence, as passing over into the quantitative, which within it was supposed to be only sublated, has reduced itself to a moment. But inasmuch as the passing-over has sublated itself at large, self-subsistence in its passing-over has come together only with itself. Through the fact that in passing over it sublates its passing-over, it is for the first time genuine self-subsistence. The self-subsistent posits itself as self-subsistent in one and the same respect in which it sublates its specific quality; for only thereby is it the genuine reference to itself.

What is at hand, then, is the self-subsistence which mediates itself with itself through its negation. Specific self-subsistence, the excluding reference to itself, has its indifference towards itself, the quantitative, as its negation, for its mediating moment, and as this return into itself it is absolute self-subsistence.

Chapter 3. The Becoming of Essence

A. Indifference

The specific self-subsistent is mediated with its own self through its negation, and so it is no longer specific but absolute self-subsistence. — At first, to be sure, the specific is immediate being at large, the qualitative, whereas the negation of it is the quantitative, whereby it returns into itself. Yet the quantitative is just as much quality, and thereby something specific over against quality as such, while quality is its negation; the two therefore have only an indeterminate sense left over against each other. — Further, the specific is no longer to be called a self-subsistent; the qualitative and the quantitative are downright nothing but moments any more. The absolute self-subsistent, which is their infinite, in which they are sublated, is their unity insofar as it comes forth out of them. It is not their becoming, — this was the nodal line and the infinite advance of them, for it is not their unity in which they would still have their qualitative difference. Nor has it gone back into the determination of their immediate unity; for the moments are one as in difference from each other, or their unity is not at hand in which they would be one only as sublated, but rather they are this, to continue themselves the one in the other. Their unity is therefore the unity that is in them and indifferent towards them, their indifference.

This indifference of the qualitative and the quantitative is the indifferentness of both determinations at large, each of which in the other does not pass over but only comes together with its own self. For that reason, however, it is further also only the self-subsistence that is in itself, not yet the one that is for itself. Since it is the indifferentness towards the difference of the two determinations, it does not yet have that difference at its own self. It is a unity that is in itself and indifferent, so it is posited in the determination of quantity, and the qualitative difference stands over against it, as that towards which it is indifferent. — Or insofar as it is the infinite that results from the going-into-itself of the qualitative and the quantitative, it has this movement behind it, and is referred to it. — What indifference thus lacks is this, to have at its own self the qualitative unity with itself, the absolute negativity. It stands in the determination of indifferentness towards the negative; hence not the absolutely self-subsistent.

B. The Self-subsistent as Inverse Ratio of Its Factors

Indifference is only the unity of the qualitative and the quantitative that is in itself; it has the determinate reference to its other, towards which it is indifferent; as being in itself it is indeed immediacy, but an immediacy from which its mediation is distinct; it is therefore in fact itself mediated. Thus it is the specific self-subsistent that mediates itself with itself through its negation and thereby becomes absolute self-subsistence, in such a way that it still has the two determinations, specific self-subsistence and the negation of it, at itself as moments which are distinguished from its indifference; through this these moments regain for an instant their determinate sense over against each other. But not as self-subsistents which are such immediately for themselves, rather as ones that have their self-subsistence solely in their indifference and are its moments.

There is first at hand the moment of specific self-subsistence, which in its determinateness is the qualitative one; it is not at its own self the indifferent unity with itself, but is over against that unity the determinate, hence what is differentiated within itself. There are thus two self-subsistences at large; they are self-subsistent only in themselves, in their unity; for in it they are not determinate over against an other; only in the negation of its own self is the specific self-subsistent. In their specific determinateness, however, the one of them is what the other is not, and hence each is at the same time only insofar as the other is. But their determinate diversity over against each other is made up by the quantitative difference; the qualitative one makes up its constitution, its specific reference to an other, through the quantum. This quantum, which makes up the being of the sides of the ratio, is qualitatively determined the one against the other, so that the being of the one is the non-being of the other. They accordingly stand in an inverse ratio.

The inverse ratio returns here; it is not, however, the first, formal one. In that one the qualitative reference — that the one is not what the other is — was itself indifferent to the sides, for they were only quanta at large. Here, in the reality of this ratio, it is the sides' own qualitativity that refers them in this way; their specific determination contains the moment of excluding, of being at their own selves insofar as the other is not. At the same time this return of the sides into themselves is the indifferent reference to self, the quantum; they have it as the determination of their indifferent subsistence over against each other. The quantum for its part is thus, as something specific, not the immediate external determinateness but a qualitative reference.

The two sides of this inverse ratio have their self-subsistence in the indifference of their moments that is in itself; they are this unity itself; but the differentiated unity; they are specified self-subsistents. As the unity of the qualitative and the quantitative, both are in themselves the same and self-subsistent, but they are this unity as mediated through their negation or through otherness; each has its return into itself in the other; the qualitative is what is determined in itself only within quantity as the indifferent subsistence, and the quantitative is something specific only within the qualitative. This negative unity, in which they are a self-subsistent, is still distinguished from their absolute indifference; hence the negative steps over against itself in its determinateness. Their unity is therefore at hand, as their self-subsistence at large, in the difference of two which, as has already been determined, stand to each other in an inverse ratio. They are specifically self-subsistent, as determinate ones, and each is the mediation of itself with itself through its negation; but its negation is distinguished from its self-subsistence that is as yet only in itself; the negation is therefore an other self-subsistent. The return into self accordingly consists likewise as yet only in the immediacy of each, in which it maintains itself over against its alteration; the immediacy of its subsistence and its equality with itself as within alteration, or its mediation with itself, fall apart. There is at each an immediate part which is for itself and does not accrue to it out of the negation of the other, a part that can be regarded as greater or smaller or as infinitely small, and which is at large the moment of specific self-subsistence.

What is at hand, then, in the real inverse ratio are two specific self-subsistences; ones which in themselves are the same, and are distinguished as quanta. Their indifference that is in itself is thus only their sum; a determinate quantum. This sum has its qualitative determinateness in the differing ratios into which the indifferent quanta enter with each other; for the reference which such qualitatively determined quanta of the whole have within the ratio is the specific diversity of this whole. These sides of the ratio are factors which, being in themselves the same whole, determine the whole through their determinate quantitative alteration, not according to its indifference but according to its determinateness; for it is precisely this that they make up.

This determinateness of the factors now consists in the differing ratio of their quanta. But at the same time they are essentially determined qualitatively over against each other; their quantitative diversity is not a falling apart of them but is within One unity. The one therefore has a magnitude only insofar as the other side does not have it; by as much as is taken from the one, so much accrues to the other. But now for that very reason, because their quantitativity is downright of this qualitative nature, each reaches only so far as the other does. Insofar as they were supposed to be diverse as quanta and to make up a determinate ratio, the one would run out beyond the other and would have in its more a being which the other would not have. But in their qualitative reference each is only insofar as the other is. — They are therefore in equilibrium, such that by however much the one increased or diminished, the other would likewise grow or shrink, and would grow or shrink in the very same ratio.

By reason of their qualitative reference, therefore, it cannot come to any quantitative difference. — But the quantitative determination can be taken as the first, and hence the one can be assumed immediately as greater than the other. In that case, however, it goes out beyond its own self; for in its determination it is equal to the other; as unequal to the other, it goes out beyond itself and contains the other. More than the other it has only from the other; but nothing is left over to the latter, for on account of the qualitative determination which the quantitative difference has, what the one would be over and beyond the other, is only this other itself. There is only the one and the other; insofar as the one were to undergo an increment, this increment is only the other.

Insofar, then, as starting from the quantitative representation the equilibrium is disturbed and one factor is taken as greater, it becomes the preponderant one in such a way that the other diminishes at accelerating speed and is overpowered by the first, so that this first makes itself the sole self-subsistent, but is thereby no longer a specific one but the whole.

Insofar, then, as a determinateness is at hand at the whole whose factors the sides of the inverse ratio are supposed to be, and an alteration goes on, this alteration goes on only at the whole itself, not at the factors, which have no determinateness over against each other. Further, insofar as such factors, — though, as has been shown, superfluously, — are assumed as determinations of the whole, it is a matter of complete indifference which of them one lets alter, or else the other alters just as much; there is only one thing at all, the whole, that alters; the difference of the factors is without significance.

But the whole too does not alter; for this whole, the indifference that is in itself, is at large no longer determined qualitatively or quantitatively; it is not sum or quantum, nor any other qualitative determinateness. Determinateness is no longer first negation, but absolute negativity. Indifference is in itself only this, to be indifferent towards quality and quantum. The determinateness, however, which it still had as something that is in itself, and which consisted in the difference of its factors, has completely sublated itself in this, that it showed itself to be what goes back into itself; through this these factors are the same not only in themselves, but in their determinate other ness; it is their negative reference through which they are one.

Remark

This ratio of a whole which is meant to possess its determinateness in the difference of magnitude between factors qualitatively determined against each other is put to use, for instance, in the elliptical motion of the heavenly bodies. In this motion their speed accelerates as they approach the perihelion, and it slackens as they approach the aphelion. For what passes as an explanation of this phenomenon, one posits a centripetal and a centrifugal force as qualitative moments of motion along the curved line. Their qualitative difference consists in the diversity of direction. In quantitative respect they are determined as unequal and opposed, so that as the one is to grow the other is to wane, and conversely, and at the same time so that their ratio should also turn about once more, so that once the centripetal force has increased for a while and the centrifugal force has decreased, a point should set in at which the centripetal force decreases while the centrifugal force increases. I have shed light on this subject in an earlier dissertation and laid bare the nullity of this distinction and of the explanations built upon it. Closer consideration readily shows that in the operations and formulas built upon that distinction there in fact occurs no quantitative diversity of these moments at all, but rather that what is always in question is only the whole, the speed of the motion; so that what comes out as the magnitude of the effect of the one factor is just as much the magnitude of the other, as it is likewise the magnitude of the whole. Because they have their qualitative determinateness over against each other, they simply cannot be pulled apart from one another; each has sense only with respect to the other; insofar, therefore, as one of them had a surplus beyond the other, just so far would it stand in no reference to the other and would not be at hand. — Suppose it assumed that at some time the one is greater than the other: were it, as the greater, to stand in reference to what is smaller, then what has been said above sets in, namely that it would gain preponderance absolutely, and the other would vanish. It is a very simple consideration that if, for instance, as is pretended, the centripetal force of the body is to increase as the body approaches the perihelion while the centrifugal force is to decrease by just as much, then the latter can no longer wrench the body loose from the former and remove it once more from its central body; on the contrary, since preponderance has once fallen to the former, the other is overpowered, and with accelerating speed the body is borne towards its central body. Just as, conversely, when the centrifugal force holds the upper hand at the infinite nearness of the aphelion, it is equally contradictory that in the aphelion itself it should now be overpowered by the weaker one. — It is evident that it would take an alien force to bring about this reversal; which means that the now accelerated, now retarded speed of the motion cannot be cognized from those factors which were assumed precisely in order to explain this very difference.

The same ratio was later applied to attractive force and repulsive force in order to grasp how bodies differ in density; and the inverse ratio between sensibility and irritability, too, was supposed to serve for grasping, from the diversity that these two factors of life exhibit, the differing determinations of the whole, of health, as also the diversity among the genera of living beings. But the confusion and the galimatias in which this explaining entangled itself through the uncritical use of these conceptual determinations has had the consequence that this formalism appears to have been soon abandoned again, whereas in science, and especially in physical astronomy, it is carried on in its full extent.

— With regard to absolute indifference, the fundamental concept of Spinoza's substance, it may still be recalled that this concept is the last determination of being before being becomes essence, but that it does not itself reach essence. Absolute indifference contains the absolute unity of the specifically self-subsistent in their highest determination, as that of thinking and of being, and therein at large of all the other modifications of these attributes. Yet with this only the absolute that is in itself, not the absolute that is for itself, has been thought. Or it is the external reflection which halts at the thought that the specifically self-subsistent are in themselves or in the absolute the same and one, that their difference is merely an indifferent one, no difference in itself. What is still lacking here consists in this, that this reflection should not be the external reflection of the thinking subject, but that it should itself be cognized, and indeed as the self-subsistents' own determination and movement to sublate their difference and to be one not merely in themselves but in their qualitative difference, whereby then the concept of essence, not to have the negative outside it but to be at its own self the absolute negativity, indifference towards its own self just as much as of its otherness towards itself.

C. Emergence of Essence

Absolute indifference consisted in this, that it is the specifically self-subsistent which mediates itself with its own self through its negation, and, purified by this negation, is the absolutely self-subsistent. It is thus the indifference which presupposes the specific self-subsistent and the negation of it, and is thereby determined as what is in itself.

In the first place, this determinateness is essential to it; coming back out of those moments, indifference, as the determination or as being-in-itself, is distinguished from them as from its constitution or its being-for-other.

Secondly, however, this determinateness has more closely turned out to be the inverse ratio of factors. For since it is essentially at the absolutely self-subsistent, that specific self-subsistence and the negation of it are to be considered only in their reference to it; or rather they are only moments of this their unity.

Thirdly, in this determination of being factors of the determinateness of essence, their incomplete unity, their inverse ratio, has sublated itself. Or the determinateness of absolute indifference has shown itself to be the negative reference to its own self. Determinateness is the difference and the mutual negation of the factors; but the negation is no longer the negation of something immediate, such that it would itself be only an immediate one and determined through an other, but rather the negation of the other is negation of one's own specific self-subsistence over against the other; the negative reference to the other, which as such is a being-determined or a passing over, is rather a sublating of one's own determinateness, the passing over into one's own self; negation of the negative.

The determinateness of the indifference that is in itself is with this the infinity of its self-subsistence, the absolute negativity. It is therefore not the specific self-subsistence which mediates itself with its own self through its negation, but it is the absolute self-subsistence, which is only this, to mediate itself with itself through its negativity that is equal to it. — In this, to be sure, a first absolute self-subsistence is enunciated over against the other, which is as mediated with itself. To that extent the former is the immediate one, or the one that only is in itself; to that extent it is the specific, a determinate self-subsistence at large. But the result is precisely this, first, that the self-subsistence which is in itself, indifference as such, is not absolute but is itself determined, and that it is this essentially, but that its determinateness is the negation of the negation, hence a self-subsistence which is for itself, one that contains that self-subsistence which is in itself as something sublated, as a moment. There is therefore at hand the self-subsistence which is this, namely to be, in the complete negation of its own self, that is to say in the self-subsistence of otherness, which means of the first immediate, simple reference to itself, and hence at the same time negative reference to itself.

With this being has absolutely gone back into itself; it has sublated its determinateness of being the simple immediate, and has recollected itself.

Being is first quality, which according to its determination is the being determined in itself, a determinateness which is, in that it is the negation of the other. Quantity, according to its determination, is the indifferent determinateness, which is not the negation of an other but is indifferent towards it and to which the other is external. It first showed itself at them, in their immediacy, that quality passes over into quantity, but quantity into quality. Their unity is measure; whereas before each was posited for itself, in measure they have entered into the reference, at first according to their determinateness over against each other, hence only in a relative unity. Through the movement of measure, however, there is posited what they, each considered for itself, showed themselves to be in themselves, and out of this their absolute unity emerges.

This unity of the qualitative and the quantitative, at first an indifferentness towards the one and towards the other, is essentially not indifference as towards the one and the other, but indifferentness towards its own self, a falling apart within itself. This is the quantitativity of indifference, but just as much its qualitativity; for as indifference it is a self-subsistence that is in itself and immediate; but precisely this being-in-itself, or the immediacy, is determinateness; hence the negation of indifference, an other self-subsistent. The negative reference of the two self-subsistents to each other makes up their qualitative determinateness, in which that first immediacy is thus posited only as determinateness and is thereby sublated; and since this sublating is not merely a sublating of immediacy but of immediacy as negation, it is negation of the negation; the determinateness which is the self-subsistence of the whole; the negative indifference.

This unity with itself of determinateness and of indifference towards it is the truth of being. It is the simple being, indifferent immediacy, as mediated with itself through its negation, through its indifference towards its own self; or it is mediation as pure equality with itself, as simple immediacy, — being which is only this, to have converged with itself in its negation and thereby to be pure being.

Being as this being that is downright recollected is essence. The truth of being is thus to be something immediate as absolutely sublated immediacy. It is only as negative reference to itself; thus it repels itself from itself, this repelling is its non-being, and so it is the first immediacy, qualitative being. But this non-being is indifference towards itself, the sublating of itself, and so it is at first quantitative being; — this is already in itself the return into itself; insofar, namely, as that first is determined as non-being; but it is as yet only quantitative being insofar as that first is immediate being. Quantitative being makes itself into measure and as measure into the indifference that is for itself; this indifference is precisely this, to determine immediate being as a non-being, and being-in-itself as determinateness. Being, in that it is this, not to be what it is and to be what it is not; — as this simple negativity of its own self, is essence.