G. W. F. Hegel

“ The One is not unfolded as self-developing necessity, not, in accordance with what is indicated by its notion, as the process which mediates the necessity with itself and within itself. If the principle of movement is here wanting, it is certainly found in more concrete principles in the flux of Heraclitus, in number too, and so on; but, on the one hand, the unity of Being, the divine self-equality, is not preserved, and, on the other, a principle of this kind stands in exactly the same relation to the ordinary existing world as the Being, the One, or the Substance referred to. ”

“ It exists as the natural self-consciousness of the Brahmans, and as the self-consciousness of others who put under restraint and kill their consciousness in its manifold forms, their sensations, their material and spiritual interests, and all the active life connected with them, and reduce it to the perfect simplicity and emptiness of that substantial unity. Thus this thought, this abstraction of men in themselves, is held to be the force of the world. ”

“ The mediation was the self-annulling of the mediation. Essence means what is as yet absolutely abstract self-identity; it is not subject, and still less is it Spirit. The entire determination is found in absolute necessity, which in its character as Being is at the same time what has immediate Being, and which, as a matter of fact, implicitly determines itself as subject, but at first in the purely superficial form of something having Being, in the form of the Absolutely-necessary. ”

“ I merely indicate the more immediate conclusion referred to by him, namely, that from the interchange of the two “it may be successfully inferred that things can originate without originating, and alter without undergoing alteration, and can be before and after each other without being before and after.” Such conclusions are too absurd to require any further comment. The contradiction to which the Understanding reduces a principle is an ultimate one; it is simply the limit of the horizon of thought beyond which it is not possible to go, but in presence of which we must turn back. ”

“ They start with a presupposition, they negate it in the absolute unity, but they don’t get out of this unity back to the presupposition. They don’t think of the world, which is considered to be merely comprised within an abstraction of contingency, of the many and so on, as produced out of Substance. Everything passes into this unity as into a kind of eternal night, while this unity is not characterised as a principle which moves itself to its manifestation, or produces it, “as the unmoved which moves,” according to the profound expression of Aristotle. ”

“ Spinoza did not construct any philosophy of Nature, but treated of the other part of concrete philosophy, namely, a system of ethics. This system of ethics was from one point of view to be logically connected with the principle of absolute Substance, at least in a general way, because Man’s highest characteristic, his tendency to seek after God, is the pure love of God, according to Spinoza’s expression, sub specie æterni. ”

“ Each has meaning and existence only in so far as it stands in this relation to the other, and yet they are supposed to be absolutely different. We cling with equal firmness to the idea that the cause is not the effect and the effect is not the cause, and the Understanding holds obstinately to this fact of the independent being of these two categories and of the absence of relation between them. ”

“ It is just that simple unity as existing for itself which is called Substance. This thought is thus conceived of as the force which creates and preserves the world, and which also alters and changes its existence as this appears in particular forms. ”

“ There is only one Being, and this belongs to necessity, and things by their very nature form part of it. What we have defined as absolute necessity has to be more definitely hypostatised in the form of universal Being or Substance, while, in its character as a result, it is a self-mediated unity in virtue of the abrogation of mediation. ”

“ There can be no mistake but that the essential and Christian definition of freedom or individuality, which as free is infinite in itself and is personality, has misled the Understanding into conceiving of the particularisation of finitude under the category of an existing unchangeable atom, and into overlooking the moment of the negative which is involved in force and in the general system to which it belongs. ”

“ In these systems the Absolute, or God, is defined as the One, Being, the Being in all existence, the absolute Substance, the Essence which is necessary not through an Other, but in-and-for-itself, the Causa Sui, the cause of itself, and consequently its own effect, that is, the mediation which cancels itself. ”

“ All systematic detailed treatment of the phenomenal world, however logical it may be in itself, when it follows the ordinary procedure, and starts with what is perceived by the senses, becomes an ordinary science in which what is recognised as the Absolute itself, the One, Substance, is not supposed to be living, is not the moving principle, the method, for it is devoid of definite character. ”

“ It is the variable element or alternation of its absolute unity whereby it determines itself as mediation, that is, as external necessity, a relation of an Other to an Other, that is, whereby it spreads itself out into infinite multiplicity, into the absolutely conditioned world, but in such a way that it degrades external mediation, the contingent world to the condition of a world of appearance, and in this nullity comes into harmony with itself, posits itself as equal to itself, and does this in the world as representing its force. ”

“ Individuality, it is true, does not exactly get the length of being personality, but the force unfolds itself in a sufficiently wild way as an illogical transition into its opposite. We find ourselves in a region of unbridled madness in which the present in its most ordinary form is directly elevated to the rank of something divine, and Substance is conceived of as existing in finite shapes, while the shapes assumed have a volatile character and directly melt away. ”

“ Thus in the religion of the Greeks we see absolute necessity in the form of Fate occupying the place of what is supreme and ultimate, and it is only in subordination to this necessity that we have the joyous company of the concrete and living Gods. ”

“ They do not get beyond Being or Substance, a form which we shall take up later on. This category, taken in itself, is the basis of all religions and philosophies. In all these God is Absolute Being, an Essence, which exists absolutely in-and-for-itself, and does not exist through an Other, but represents independence pure and simple. ”

“ They cannot free themselves from the absoluteness of their finitude, and this finitude is not thought of as something which disappears and is absorbed in this unity with the Divine, but is still preserved by them in it as existing. On the other hand, since the finite is, as they say, robbed of its infinitude by Pantheism, the finite has in consequence no longer any Being at all. ”

“ But it is not hard for reason, which, on the contrary, in its character as the free, and especially as the religious human spirit, abandons such a finite relation as this of mediation with an Other, and knows how to solve in thought the contradiction which comes to consciousness in thought. ”

“ The Oriental theory of the universe is in general represented by this idea of sublimity which puts all individualisation into special shapes, and infinitely extends all particular forms of existence and particular interests. ”

“ In the antithesis of Being and Nothing, One and Many, and so on, the characteristics are found existing in such a way as to imply that they are matched with each other in their relation, and yet that they have, as unrelated, a valid independent existence besides. ”

“ The unity implied in this latter characteristic belongs to an infinitely deeper and more developed form of thought than the abstract unity of Being, or the One. This conception has been sufficiently explained. Causa Sui is a very striking expression for that unity, and we may accordingly give some further attention to its elucidation. The relation of cause and effect belongs to the moment of mediation through an Other already referred to, and which we saw in necessity, and is its definite form. Anything is completely mediated by an Other in so far as this Other is its cause. ”

“ Here necessity constitutes the abstract force which is above all the particular spiritual, moral, and natural forces. These latter, however, partly possess the character of non-spiritual, merely natural force, which remains completely under the power of necessity, while their personalities are merely personifications; and yet, although they may not exactly deserve to be called persons, they also partly contain the higher characteristic of subjective inherent freedom. ”

“ This existence is not identical Being, Being in a state of repose, but, on the contrary, represents origination, alteration, mediation with an Other, though it is a mediation which returns to itself. The living force of what has life consists in making life originate, and the living already is ”

“ We can see that it expresses the idea of self-mediation through an Other, of mediation as self-annulling mediation, but likewise that this mediation is directly abandoned. The abstract expression, Things, does its part in bringing the finite before the mind. The finite is a form of limited Being to which only one of two opposite qualities attaches, and which does not remain with itself in the Other, but simply perishes. ”

“ Regarding the subject in this aspect, it may here be merely remarked that in general those religions which have this determinateness as their basis have, so far as the inner logical development of concrete Spirit is concerned, richer and more varied elements than any which the abstract principle at first brings with it. In the sphere of phenomena and in consciousness the other moments of the Idea in its full and completed form, are superadded in a way which is inconsistent with that abstract principle. ”

“ But cause and effect have a meaning simply and solely in virtue of their relation. The meaning of the cause does not extend beyond the fact that it has an effect. The stone which falls has the effect of producing an impression on the object upon which it falls. ”