II.2.2. Appearance

Existence is the immediacy of Being as which Essence has reconstituted itself. This immediacy is in itself the intro-Reflection of Essence. Essence as Existence emerged out of its Ground, and the Ground itself has passed over into it. Existence is this reflected immediacy in so far as it is in itself absolute negativity. And now it is also posited as this, since it has determined itself as Appearance.

Consequently Appearance at this point is Essence in its Existence; Essence is present therein immediately. The fact that it is not immediate but reflected Existence constitutes the moment of Essence in it; in other words, Existence as essential Existence is Appearance.

Something is only Appearance in this meaning, that Existence as such is only a posited entity and not one which is in and for itself. This constitutes its essentiality, which causes it to have in itself the negativity of Reflection, which is the nature of Essence. This Reflection is not foreign or external, with Essence belonging to it, nor does it declare Existence to be Appearance after comparison made between Essence and Existence; but (as was seen) this essentiality of Existence, which makes it Appearance, is the proper truth of Existence. The Reflection, by virtue of which it is this, is its own.

But if it is said that something is only Appearance, as though immediate Existence on the contrary were the truth, then, in fact, Appearance is the higher truth; for Appearance is Existence as essential Appearance, whereas immediate Existence is Appearance which as yet is essenceless because it has one moment only of Appearance, namely Existence as immediate, and has not yet its negative Reflection. If Appearance is called essenceless, then the moment of its negativity is thought of as though the immediate, as opposed to it, were the positive and true; but in fact this immediate does not yet contain essential truth. Indeed, Existence ceases to be essenceless by the fact that it passes over into Appearance.

Essence at first shows in itself, in its simple identity; it is thus abstract Reflection, or the pure movement from nothing through nothing back to itself. Essence appears and now is real Show, where the moments of Show have Existence. It has already resulted that Appearance is the negative self-mediation of the Thing; the distinctions that the Thing contains are independent Matters, which are this contradiction, that they are an immediate persistence and also have their persistence only in a foreign independence, that is, in the negation of their own, and, again, for this very reason have their persistence only in the negation of this foreign independence, or in the negation of their own negation. Show is this same mediation; but its unstable moments take in Appearance the shape of immediate independence. On the other hand the immediate independence which belongs to Existence is, for its part, reduced to the rank of moment. Appearance consequently is the unity of Show and Existence.

Appearance now determines itself more closely. It is essential Existence; the essentiality of the latter distinguishes itself from Appearance in so far as this is unessential, and these two sides enter into relation with each other.—At first therefore Appearance is simple self-identity, containing at the same time various content-determinations; and it itself as well as their relation is that which remains constant to itself in the changes of Appearance; this is the Law of Appearance.

Now secondly Law, which is simple in its variety, passes over into the opposite; the essential part of Appearance is opposed to Appearance, and the World which is-in-itself takes its stand against the World of Appearance.

Thirdly this opposition passes back into its Ground; that which is-in-itself is in Appearance, and conversely that which appears is determined as absorbed into its Being-in-Self; Appearance becomes Relation.

1. Appearance is the Existent mediated through its negation, which constitutes its persistence. Though this its negation is another independent entity, it is equally essentially a transcended entity. Consequently the Existent is the return of itself into itself through its negation and through the negation of this its negation; it has therefore essential independence, as also it is likewise immediately just positedness, which has a Ground and an Other for its consistence.—First, then, Appearance is Existence together with its essentiality, positedness with its Ground; but this Ground is negation, and the other independent entity which is the Ground of the first is also no more than a positedness. Or again, the Existent, as Appearing, is reflected into an Other and has this for Ground, and this means only this, that it is reflected into an Other. The essential independence which belongs to it because it is return into self is the return of Nothing through Nothing to itself, on account of the negativity of the moments; hence the independence of the Existent is only essential Show. For this reason the coherence of the Existent which reciprocally grounds itself consists in this reciprocal negation, namely, that the persistence of the one is not the persistence of the other but its positedness, which relation of positedness alone constitutes its persistence. Ground is here as it is in its truth: it is a first term which is only a presupposition.

This then constitutes the negative side of Appearance. But in this negative mediation is contained immediately the positive self-identity of the Existent. For it is not positedness as against an essential Ground, or, again, it is not Show as in an independent entity; but it is positedness which refers itself to a positedness, or it is Show only in a Show. In this its negation or in its Other (which is itself transcended) it relates itself to itself, and accordingly is self-identical or positive essentiality.—This identity is not immediacy, which belongs to Existence as such, and is only that unessential part of it by which it has its persistence in an Other. On the contrary, it is the essential content of Appearance, which has two sides: first it is in the form of positedness or external immediacy, and secondly it is positedness as self-identity. According to the first side the content is as a Determinate Being, which however is contingent and unessential, subject in its immediacy to transition, arising, and passing away. According to the other side the content is simple content-determination exempt from this change; it is the enduring part of it.

This content in general is the simple element of perishableness; but apart from this it is also determinate content various within itself. It is the intro-Reflection of Appearance, of negative Determinate Being, and thus essentially contains determinateness. But Appearance is existent multiple variety which disports itself in unessential multifariousness; while its reflected content is its multifariousness reduced to simple difference. For (considered more precisely) determinate essential content is not only determinate in general, but, as the essential part of Appearance, it is complete determinateness: One and its Other. In Appearance each of these has its persistence in the other in such a manner that it is also only in the other’s non-persistence. This contradiction cancels itself, and its intro-Reflection is the identity of the persistence of each: the positedness of the one is the positedness of the other also. They constitute one persistence, and at the same time are a various and mutually indifferent content. Thus in the essential side of Appearance the negative part of the unessential content (self-transcendence) has passed back into identity; it is an indifferent persistence, which is not transcendedness but rather the persistence of the Other.

This unity is the Law of Appearance.

2. Law therefore is the positive element in the mediation of the Apparent. Appearance at this stage is Existence as negative self-mediation, so that the Existent is mediated with itself through its own non-persistence, through an Other, and again through the non-persistence of this Other. Herein is contained firstly the mere showing and vanishing of both (unessential Appearance), and secondly also endurance or Law; for each of the two exists in the transcendence of the other, and their positedness as their negativity is also the identical, positive positedness of both.

This enduring persistence which belongs to Appearance in Law is accordingly, as it has determined itself, opposed firstly to the immediacy of Being which belongs to Existence. In itself this immediacy is reflected immediacy, that is, Ground which has passed back into itself; but now, in Appearance, this simple immediacy is distinct from reflected immediacy, whereas in the Thing their separation was but commencing. In its dissolution the existing Thing has become this opposition; the positive element of its dissolution is the self-identity of the Apparent, as positedness, in its other positedness.—Secondly this reflected immediacy is itself determined as positedness as against the immediacy, which has being, of Existence. This positedness (Gesetztsein) is now the essential and truly positive. The German expression Gesetz (Law) contains this determination likewise. In this positedness lies the essential relation of the two sides of the distinction which is contained in Law; they are a various and mutually immediate content, and they are this as the Reflection of the vanishing content which belongs to Appearance. As essential variety the various terms are simple self-relating content-determinations. But equally none of them is immediate for itself, but each essentially is positedness, or is only in so far as the other is.

Thirdly, Appearance and Law have one and the same content. Law is the Reflection of Appearance into identity with itself; thus Appearance stands opposed as void immediacy to the intro-reflected, and, according to this form, they are distinct. But the Reflection of Appearance by virtue of which this distinction has being is also the essential identity of Appearance itself and of its Reflection, and indeed this is the nature of Reflection: it is that which in positedness is self-identical and indifferent to that distinction which is form or positedness; it is a content which continues itself out of Appearance into Law: the content of Law and of Appearance.

This content accordingly constitutes the foundation of Appearance; Law is this foundation itself, and Appearance is the same content, but it contains more too, namely the unessential content of its immediate being. For the form-determination also, by virtue of which Appearance as such is distinct from Law, is a content, and is likewise distinct from the content of Law. For Existence, too, as immediacy in general, is a self-identity of matter and form which is indifferent to its form-determinations and therefore is content: it is Thinghood with its Properties and Matters. But it is that content whose independent immediacy also has being only as a non-persistence. But its self-identity in this its non-persistence is the other or essential content. This identity, the foundation of Appearance, which constitutes Law, is the peculiar moment of Appearance; it is the positive side of essentiality, by virtue of which Existence is Appearance.

Consequently Law is not beyond Appearance, but is immediately present in it: the realm of Laws is the quiescent counterfeit of the existing or appearing world. Or rather both are one totality, and the existing world is itself the realm of Laws, which, as the simple identical, is at the same time identical with itself in positedness or in the self-dissolving independence of Existence. Existence passes back into Law as into its Ground; Appearance contains them both—simple Ground and the dissolving movement of the appearing universe, of which movement Ground is the essentiality.

3. Law, then, is essential Appearance; it is the intro-Reflection of Appearance in its positedness, the identical content of itself and of unessential Existence. Now first this identity of Law with its Existence is just immediate and simple identity, and Law is indifferent to its Existence: Appearance has a further content as against the content of Law. The former, indeed, is unessential and is the regress into the latter content; but for Law it is a prius which is not posited by it; as content therefore it is externally connected with Law. Appearance is a multitude of closer determinations which belong to the “this” or the concrete, and are not contained in Law, but are determined by something else.—Secondly, that which Appearance contains apart from Law determined itself as positive or as another content; but essentially it is negative; it is Form and its movement as such, which belongs to Appearance. The realm of Laws is the quiescent content of Appearance; Appearance is this same content, but presents itself in unquiet change and as Reflection into other. It is Law as negative and just changing Existence, the movement of transition into opposite, of self-transcendence and regress into unity. Law does not contain this side of unquiet Form, or of negativity; Appearance, therefore, as against Law is the totality, for it contains Law but also more, namely the moment of self-moving Form.—Thirdly, this deficiency is found in Law in this shape, that its content is as yet merely various and therefore indifferent to itself, so that the identity of its sides with each other is just immediate and so internal, or not, as yet, necessary. In Law two content-determinations are connected as essential (for instance, in the Law of Gravitation, spatial and temporal magnitude: spaces passed through vary as the squares of the times elapsed); they are in a connected state; as yet this relation is merely immediate. Consequently the relation itself is merely posited, and indeed in Appearance the immediate in general has obtained the significance of positedness. The essential unity of the two sides of Law would be their negativity—the one, that is, containing the other in itself; but this essential unity has not yet emerged in Law. (—It is not contained in the concept of the space which is passed through when a body falls that time is to correspond to it as a square. A fall is a sensible movement, and therefore it is the relation between time and space; but, first, it is not implied in the determination of time itself—that is, time as taken by imagination—that it is related to space, and conversely. It is said that time can quite well be imagined without space, and space without time; one is therefore added to the other externally, and this external relation is movement. Secondly, the further determination—namely, what are the magnitudes in accordance with which time and space are related in movement—is indifferent. The law governing this is known empirically, and in so far it is merely immediate; and a proof is still required, that is, a mediation for cognition, that the law not only operates but is necessary. The law as such does not contain this proof and its objective necessity.—) Consequently Law is only the positive and not the negative essentiality of Appearance. In the latter the content-determinations are moments of Form, as such pass over into their Other, and in themselves are just as much not themselves but their Other. In Law then the positedness of one side is the positedness of the other; but yet their content is indifferent to this relation and, in itself, does not contain this positedness. Consequently, although Law is essential Form, it is not yet Real Form, reflected into its sides as Content.

1. The existing world rises peacefully into a realm of Laws; the void content of its manifold Determinate Being has its persistence in an Other; and accordingly its persistence is its dissolution. But in this Other the Apparent also coincides with itself; thus Appearance in its mutation is also an enduring, and its positedness is Law. Law is this simple self-identity of Appearance, and therefore is its foundation and not its Ground; for it is not the negative unity of Appearance, but, as its simple identity, it is immediate because abstract unity; consequently its other content also has its place beside it. The content is “this”; it coheres in itself, or has its negative Reflection within itself. It is reflected into an Other; this Other is itself an Existence of Appearance; appearing things have their Grounds and conditions in other appearing things.

But in truth Law is also the Other of Appearance as such, and is its negative Reflection as into its Other. The content of Appearance, which is different from the content of Law, is the Existent, which has its negativity for its Ground, or is reflected into its not-being. But this Other, which is also an Existent, is likewise an entity reflected in this manner into its not-being; it is therefore the same, and the Apparent in it is in fact not reflected into an Other but into itself: and precisely this intro-Reflection of positedness is Law. But, as Apparent, it is essentially reflected into its not-being; or, its identity is itself, essentially, also its negativity and its Other. The intro-Reflection of Appearance, that is, Law, is, then, not only its identical foundation, but Appearance also has its opposite in Law, and Law is its negative unity.

The determination of Law has thus changed in Law itself. At first Law is only a differentiated content and the formal intro-Reflection of positedness, so that the positedness of one of its sides is the positedness of the other. But Law is also negative intro-Reflection, and therefore its sides are related not merely as different but as negative to each other.—Or, if Law is considered merely for itself, then the sides of its content are indifferent to each other; but equally they are transcended in virtue of their identity; the positedness of the one is the positedness of the other; and accordingly the persistence of one is also its own non-persistence. This positedness of the one in the other is their negative unity, and each is not only the positedness of itself but also of the other; in other words, each is itself this negative unity. The positive identity which they have in Law as such is only their internal unity, which requires demonstration and mediation, since this negative unity is not yet posited in them. But the different sides of Law are now determined as being different in their negative unity, or as being such terms as contain each its Other in itself and at the same time, being independent, repel each this its otherness from itself; and therefore the identity of Law now is a posited and a real identity.

So now Law has likewise attained the moment of negative form of its sides, hitherto lacking,—the moment which before still belonged to Appearance; Existence now has returned completely into itself, and has reflected itself into its absolute otherness which is in and for itself. That which formerly was Law is in consequence no longer only one side of that whole whose other side was Appearance as such; it is the whole itself. It is the essential totality of Appearance, so that Appearance now contains also the moment of unessentiality, which formerly belonged to the latter; but it contains it as reflected, self-existent unessentiality, that is, as essential negativity.—As immediate content Law is determinate in general, and is distinct from other laws, of which there is an indeterminable number. But it now has in itself essential negativity, and for this reason it no longer contains such a merely indifferent and contingent content-determination; its content is the sum of determinateness in an essential relation which constitutes itself as totality. Thus intro-reflected Appearance now is a World, which reveals itself as a World that is in and for itself above the World of Appearance.

The realm of Laws contains only the simple, immutable, but various content of the Existing World. But this realm is the total Reflection of the latter, and therefore also contains the moment of its essenceless multiplicity. This moment of variability and variation, as intro-reflected and essential, is absolute negativity or Form in general as such; but the moments of this Form have the reality proper to independent but reflected Existence in the World which is in and for itself. Conversely, this reflected independence now also has Form, and its content therefore is not merely manifold, but essentially self-coherent.

—This World which is in and for itself is also called the supersensuous World, in so far as the Existing World is determined as sensuous, that is, as of a kind that is for intuition, for the immediate attitude of consciousness.—The supersensuous World, too, has immediacy, or Existence, but reflected, essential Existence. Essence as yet has no Determinate Being; but it is, and is in a profounder sense than Being; the Thing is the beginning of reflected Existence, it is an immediacy which is not yet posited as essential or reflected; but in truth it is not an immediate which is. Only Things—as Things of an other, supersensuous World—are posited, first as veritable existences and secondly as the truth as opposed to that which has being;—in them it is recognized that there is a Being different from immediate Being, and that this is veritable Existence. In this determination the sensuous imagination has been overcome which ascribes Existence only to the immediate Being of sensation and of intuition; but also the unconscious reflection is overcome, which has the imagination of Things, Forces, Interiority, and so forth, but does not know that such determinations are not sensuous or being immediacies, but reflected Existences.

2. The World which is in and for itself is the totality of Existence; outside it there is nothing. But since in itself it is absolute negativity or Form, its intro-Reflection is negative self-relation. It contains opposition, and repels itself into itself as the Essential World and into itself as the World of Otherness or the World of Appearance. Therefore, because it is the totality, it is also as one side thereof only, and in this determination constitutes a different independence over against the World of Appearance. The Appearing World has its negative unity in the Essential World; it perishes in it, and passes back into it as into its Ground. Further, the Essential World is also the positing Ground of the Appearing World; for it contains absolute Form in its essentiality, and hence its self-identity transcends itself, constitutes itself positedness, and, as this posited immediacy, is the Appearing World.

Further, it is not only Ground in general of the Appearing World, but its determinate Ground. Already as the realm of Laws it is manifold content—the essential content of the Appearing World; and as Ground having content, it is the determinate Ground of the other World, but only according to this content; for the Appearing World had manifold other content beside this realm, since the negative moment was its peculiar characteristic. But now the realm of Laws, too, has in itself this moment, and consequently it is the totality of the content of the Appearing World, and the Ground of all its multifariousness. At the same time, however, that World is also the negative of this latter, and therefore is the World which is opposed to it.—For in the identity of the two Worlds one is formally determined as essential, and the other as the same, but as posited and unessential; and thus the Ground-relation has restored itself, but is now at the same time the Ground-relation of Appearance; it is the relation not of an identical content, nor of one which is merely different (as is Law), but is total relation or negative identity and essential relation of content as opposed.—The realm of Laws is not only this, that the positedness of one content is the positedness of an other, but this identity is essentially—as was established—negative unity too; each of the two sides of Law is, in negative unity, in itself its other content; the Other therefore is not an indeterminate Other in general; it is its Other, that is, it too draws its content-determination from the first; thus the two sides are opposites. The realm of Laws now has in itself this negative moment and opposition; it is totality, and accordingly repels itself from itself into a World which is in and for itself and an Appearing World; and thus the identity of the two is essential relation of opposition.—The Ground-relation as such is opposition which has perished in its contradiction, and Existence is Ground which coincides with itself. But Existence becomes Appearance; Ground is transcended in Existence; it restores itself as return of Appearance into itself; but at the same time it does so as transcended Ground, namely as Ground-relation of opposite determinations. But the identity of such terms is essentially becoming and transition, no longer Ground-relation as such.

Accordingly the World which is in and for itself is itself a World differentiated in itself, in the totality of manifold content; it is identical with the Appearing or Posited World, and, in so far, it is the Ground thereof; but its identical coherence is also determined as opposition, because the Form of the Appearing World is the Reflection into its otherness, so that it has truly passed back into itself in the World which is in and for itself in so far as this is its opposite. Having been determined, therefore, the relation is this, that the World which is in and for itself is the inversion of the Appearing World.

The World which is in and for itself is the determinate Ground of the Appearing World, and it is this only in so far as it is in itself the negative moment and hence the totality of content-determinations and their changes, corresponding to the Appearing World but at the same time constituting that side of it which is absolutely opposite. The relation of the two Worlds to each other is, then, such that what is positive in the Appearing World is negative in the World which is in and for itself and conversely what is negative in that is positive in this. The North Pole of the Appearing World is in and for itself the South Pole, and conversely; positive electricity in itself is negative, and so forth. What in Apparent Determinate Being is evil, misfortune, and so on, is in and for itself good or happiness.

Indeed in this very opposition of the two Worlds their difference has vanished, and what was to have been World which is in and for itself, is itself Appearing World, while this conversely is in itself Essential World.—The Appearing World at first is determined as the Reflection into otherness, so that its determinations and Existences have their Ground and persistence in an Other; but this Other is likewise reflected into an Other, and therefore in being related to it they are related merely to a self-transcending Other, and hence to themselves; the Appearing World thus is, in itself, self-equal Law.—Conversely the World which is in and for itself is at first self-identical content, removed from otherness and change; but this content, as complete intro-Reflection of the Appearing World, or because its variety is intro-reflected and absolute difference, contains the negative moment and the relation to self as to otherness. This makes it self-opposed, self-inverting, essenceless content. Further this content of the World which is in and for itself has now obtained thereby the form of immediate Existence. For at the outset this World is Ground of the Appearing World; but, since it contains opposition, it is equally transcended Ground and immediate Existence.

Thus both the Appearing and the Essential World are each in itself the totality of self-identical Reflection and of Reflection into Other, or of Being-in-and-for-Self and of Appearing. Each is the independent whole of Existence. One was to have been only reflected Existence, and the other only immediate Existence; but each continues itself in its other, and consequently in itself is the identity of these two moments. We have, therefore, this totality which repels itself from itself into two totalities—one reflected, and the other immediate, totality. Both in the first instance are independent, but they are independent only as totalities, and they are this in so far as each essentially has in itself the moment of the other. The distinct independence of each—of that which is determined as immediate, and that which is reflected—is consequently now posited in this manner, that each is only as essential relation to the other and has its independence in this unity of both.

The beginning was made from the Law of Appearance; this is the identity of a differentiated content with another content in such a manner that the positedness of the one is the positedness of the other. In Law this difference is still present, that the identity of its sides is no more than an internal identity: the sides have not yet identity in themselves. Thus (a) this identity is not realized; the content of Law is not as identical, but an indifferent, various content;—and (b) the content is determined only in itself in such a manner that the positedness of the one is the positedness of the other; this is not yet manifest in Law. But now Law is realized; i its inner identity also has determinate being, and conversely the content of Law is raised into ideality; for it is a content in itself transcended and intro-reflected, each side having its other in itself, and therefore being veritably identical with it and with itself.

Thus Law is Essential Relation. The truth of the unessential World is, at first, an other World, which is in and for itself; but this World is the totality, for it is both itself and also that first World. Both thus are immediate Existences and hence Reflections into their otherness; and also, for this reason, they are truly intro-reflected. Indeed, the term world expresses the formless totality of multifariousness: this World, both as Essential and as Appearing, has perished, since multifariousness has ceased to be merely various; it still is totality or universe, but it is so as Essential Relation. Two totalities of content arose in Appearance. They are at first determined as mutually indifferent independent entities: they have Form, each in itself, but they have not Form each as against the other. But Form has also shown itself to be their relation, and Essential Relation is the completion of their formal unity.