I. With What Must the Science Begin?

It has only recently been felt that there is a difficulty in finding a beginning in philosophy, and the reason for this difficulty, as well as the possibility of solving it, has been much discussed. The beginning of philosophy must be either mediate or immediate, and it is easy to show that it can be neither the one nor the other: so that either method of beginning is refuted.

It is true that the principle of any philosophy also expresses a beginning, but this beginning is objective and not subjective; it is the beginning of all things. The principle is a content somehow determined,—Water, the One, Nous, Idea,—Substance, Monad, and so forth; or, where it relates to the nature of cognition and so is designed rather to be a criterion than an objective determination (like Thought, Intuition, Sensation, Ego, or Subjectivity itself), it is still the determination of the content to which interest is directed. On the other hand the beginning as such, considered as something subjective in the sense of some contingent way of introducing the exposition, remains neglected and indifferent; and so the need of the question, with what we are to begin, still seems unimportant compared with the need of a principle, which alone seems to contain the interest of the matter,—the interest as to what is the truth and the absolute basis of all things.

The modern embarrassment about a beginning arises from yet another need with which those are unacquainted who, as dogmatists, seek a demonstration of the principle, or who, as sceptics, seek a subjective criterion with which to meet dogmatic philosophy;—a need which, finally, is entirely denied by those who begin with explosive abruptness from their inner revelation, faith, intellectual intuition, and so forth, and desire to dispense with Method and Logic. If thought at first is abstract and concerns itself merely with the principle regarded as content, but in the progress of its evolution is forced to regard also the other side, the behaviour of cognition, then subjective activity is perceived as an essential moment of objective truth, and the need arises of uniting method with content and form with principle. The principle is to be the beginning, and the actual “prius” for thought is also to be first in the logical thought-process.

We have here only to consider how the logical beginning appears; the two aspects in which it can be taken, mediately as a result or immediately as a beginning proper, have already been named. The question which seems so important to contemporary thought, whether knowledge of the truth is immediate and simply begins, whether it is an act of faith, or a mediated knowledge, is not to be discussed here. In so far as such consideration can be undertaken preliminarily, this has been done in another place (in my Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, 3rd Edn. Vorbegriff, § 61 ff.). We need only quote here that there is nothing in Heaven, Nature, Spirit, or anywhere else, which does not contain immediacy as well as mediacy, so that these two determinations are seen to be unseparated and inseparable, and the opposition between them null. As regards philosophical discussion, the determinations of mediacy and immediacy, and hence the discussion of their opposition and truth, occur in every logical proposition. With regard to thought, knowledge, and cognition, this opposition receives the more concrete shape of knowledge mediate or immediate; and the nature of cognition is considered within the Science of Logic itself, in so far as cognition, in its wider and concrete form, falls within the Science of Spirit and the Phenomenology of Spirit. But to ask for clearness about cognition before the beginning of the Science, is to demand that it shall be discussed outside its precincts; but outside the precincts of Science this cannot be done—at least not in a scientific manner, and such a manner alone is here in question.

The beginning is logical in that it is to be made within the sphere of Thought existing freely for itself, in other words, in pure Knowledge; its mediacy here arises from the fact that pure knowledge is Consciousness in its last and absolute truth. We have remarked in the introduction that the “Phenomenology of Spirit” is the Science of Consciousness, demonstrating that consciousness has for result the concept of Science, that is, pure knowledge. The science of manifested Spirit, which involves and demonstrates the necessity, and hence the proof, together with the mediation in general, of that standpoint which is pure knowledge, is thus presupposed by Logic. In this science of manifested Spirit we start from empirical and sensuous consciousness; this is immediate knowledge proper, and in the work mentioned its validity is discussed. Other kinds of consciousness, such as faith in divine truths, inner experience, knowledge through inner revelation, and so on, are shown on slight reflection to be very inappropriate as instances of immediate knowledge. In the treatise referred to, immediate consciousness is also the first and immediate element in the science, and therefore the presupposition: in the Logic, that is presupposition which appeared as the result of those reflections,—namely, the Idea as pure knowledge. Logic is pure science, that is, pure knowledge in the whole extent of its development. In its result, this Idea has determined itself to be certainty become truth; certainty which in one aspect is no longer over against the object, but has incorporated it with itself and knows it to be itself; and, from another aspect, has given up its conviction that it is opposed to and destructive of the object: it has renounced this subjectivity and is one with this renunciation.

Starting from this determination of pure knowledge, the beginning of the science of knowledge is to remain immanent; and in order to effect this, no more is requisite than that we must contemplate, or rather, putting aside all reflections and opinions otherwise held, we must just absorb, that which is presented.

Pure knowledge, taken as shrunk into this unity, has transcended all reference to an Other and to mediation; it is the undifferentiated, and as such ceases to be knowledge; nothing is there but simple immediacy.

Simple immediacy is itself an expression of reflection, and refers to its distinction from the mediated: properly expressed, this simple immediacy is therefore Pure Being. Just as pure knowledge is to mean nothing except purely abstract knowing as such, so Pure Being is to mean nothing except Being in general; Being and nothing else, without any further determination or filling.

Being is here the beginning represented as arising from mediation, a mediation which transcends itself; it being assumed that pure knowledge is the result of finite knowledge, of consciousness. If no assumption is to be made, and the beginning is to be taken immediately, it determines itself only in this way, that it is to be the beginning of Logic, of independent thought. Nothing is there except the decision (which might appear arbitrary) to consider Thought as such. The beginning must be an absolute, or, what here is equivalent, an abstract beginning: it must presuppose nothing, must be mediated by nothing, must have no foundation: itself is to be the foundation of the whole science. It must therefore just be something immediate, or rather the immediate itself. As it cannot have any determination relatively to Other, so also it cannot hold in itself any determination or content; for this would be differentiation and mutual relation of distincts, and thus mediation.—The beginning therefore is Pure Being.

To this simple exposition of what is proper to the subject of the perfectly simple, which is the logical beginning, the following further reflections may be added; their function however cannot be to elucidate or confirm this exposition, which is complete in itself, since they are rather the result of ideas and reflections which, though they may come in our way at the outset, must, like every other preliminary prejudice, be disposed of within the Science itself; so that really they should be made to await such disposal.

It has already been perceived that the absolutely true must be a result, and that, conversely, a result presupposes some primary truth; which, however, because it is primary, is not necessary, considered objectively, and, from the subjective side, is not known. Consequently the idea has arisen in recent times that the truth with which philosophy begins must be hypothetical or problematical, and that hence philosophy at first must be mere seeking. This view, frequently urged by Reinhold in the later period of his philosophy, must in justice be allowed to be based on a genuine interest regarding the speculative nature of the Beginning in philosophy. The analysis of this view is also an occasion for commencing a preliminary understanding of the meaning of logical progress; for the view in question immediately implies a reference to progress. Progress in philosophy, on this view, is in fact retrogression and justification, the result of which is to show that the Beginning was not taken arbitrarily, but is, indeed, partly the truth, partly the primary truth.. If it is considered that progress is a return to the foundation, to that origin and truth on which depends and indeed by which is produced that with which the beginning was made, then it must be admitted that this consideration is of essential importance; and it will be more clearly evident in the Logic itself.—Thus consciousness is led back on its road from immediacy, with which it begins, to absolute knowledge as its inmost truth; and the first term, which entered the stage as the immediate, arises, precisely, from this last term, the foundation.—Still further, we see that Absolute Spirit, which is found to be the concrete, last, and highest truth of all Being, at the end of its evolution freely passes beyond itself and lapses into the shape of an immediate Being; it resolves itself to the creation of a world which contains everything included in the evolution preceding that result; all of which, by reason of this inverted position, is changed, together with its beginning, into something dependent on the result, for the result is the principle. What is essential for the Science is not so much that a pure immediate is the beginning, but that itself in its totality forms a cycle returning upon itself, wherein the first is also last, and the last first.

Hence it equally results on the other hand that we must regard as result that to which the movement returns as into its foundation. From this point of view the first is equally the foundation, and the last derived: it is a result, in so far as we start from the first and reach the last (the foundation) by a series of correct conclusions. And further, the movement away from the beginning is to be considered merely as a further determination of it, so that the beginning remains the foundation of all that follows without disappearing from it. The movement does not consist in the derivation of an Other, or in a transition into something veritably Other;—in so far as such a transition occurs, it cancels itself again. Thus the beginning of philosophy, the basis which is present and preserves itself in all the developments which follow, remains a something immanent throughout its further determinations.

What is one-sided in the beginning, owing to its general determination as something abstract and immediate, is lost in this movement: it becomes mediated, and the line of scientific advance becomes a circle.—It also follows that the constituents of the Beginning, since at that point they are undeveloped and without content, are not truly understood at the Beginning; only the Science itself fully developed is an understanding of it, complete, significant, and based on truth.

Now precisely because the Result stands out as the absolute foundation, the advance of this knowledge is not something provisional, problematical, or hypothetical; it must be determined by the nature of the subject and the content. This beginning is not arbitrary nor temporarily accepted, nor is it something which, appearing arbitrary and assumed under correction, in the event turns out rightly to have been made the beginning. (The case is not that of the construction we are directed to make in order to prove a theorem in geometry, where it is only the proof which shows that we did right to draw just these lines, and then, in the proof itself, to begin with comparisons of just those lines or angles. For itself, the drawing such lines and making such comparisons does not render the proof self-evident.)

In this way the reason why in the pure Science we begin from Pure Being was above indicated immediately in the Science itself. This Pure Being is the unity into which pure knowledge returns, or, if pure knowledge as form is to be kept separate from its unity, then Pure Being is the content of pure knowledge. It is in this respect that pure Being, the absolutely immediate, is also absolutely mediated. But it is equally essential to take it one-sidedly as pure immediacy, just because it is here taken as the beginning. Were it not to be taken as this pure indeterminateness, then, in so far as it were determinate, it would be taken as mediated and as thus already carried a step further; for what is determinate contains an Other for a first element. It is therefore in the nature of the Beginning to be Being and nothing else. For entering into philosophy there is therefore no further need of preparations, nor of other considerations or connections.

We cannot extract any closer determination or positive content for the beginning from the fact that it is the beginning of philosophy. For here at the beginning, where there is as yet no philosophy, philosophy is an empty word, or an idea taken at random and not justified. Pure knowledge affords only this negative determination, that the beginning must be the abstract beginning. In so far as Pure Being is taken as the content of pure knowledge, the latter must draw back from its content and leave it to itself without further determining it.—Or again, if Pure Being is to be regarded as the unity into which knowledge has collapsed at the point where its union with the object is consummated, then knowledge has disappeared into this unity, leaving no distinction from it, and hence no determination for it.—Nor is there any other something, nor any content, which could be used to make a more closely determined beginning.

But even the determination of Being, which has been accepted so far as beginning, could be omitted, so that the only requirement would be to make a pure beginning. There would then be nothing but the beginning itself, and it would remain to be seen what that is.—This position might be used to pacify those who partly will not be satisfied because we begin with Being (from whatever considerations), still less with the resulting transition of Being into Nothing, partly know no better than that in any science a beginning is made by presupposing some idea;—such idea being next analysed, so that it is only the result of this analysis which affords the first definite concept of the science. Were we too to observe this procedure we should have no particular Object before us, because the beginning, as being the Beginning of Thought, must be perfectly abstract and general, pure form quite without content: we should have nothing but the idea of a bare beginning as such. It remains to be seen what we possess in this idea.

So far, there is Nothing: Something is to become. The Beginning is not pure Nothing, but a Nothing from which Something is to proceed; so that Being is already contained in the Beginning. The Beginning thus contains both, Being and Nothing; it is the unity of Being and Nothing, or is Not-being which is Being, and Being which also is Not-being.

Further, Being and Nothing are present in the Beginning as distinct from one another: for the Beginning points forward to something Other;—it is a Not-being related to Being as to an Other: that which is-beginning, as yet is not: it is advancing towards Being. The Beginning therefore contains Being as having this characteristic, that it flies from and transcends Not-being, as its opposite.

And further, that which is-beginning, already is, and equally, as yet, is not. The opposites Being and Not-being are therefore in immediate union in it: in other words, it is the undifferentiated unity of the two.

The analysis of the Beginning thus yields the concept of the unity of Being and Not-being, or (in a more reflected form) the unity of the state of being differentiated and of being undifferentiated, or the identity of identity and non-identity. This concept might be considered as the first or purest (that is, most abstract) definition of the Absolute; which in fact it would be were we concerned with the forms of definitions and the name of the Absolute. In this sense, this abstract concept would be the first definition of the Absolute, and all further determinations and developments would be richer and more closely determinate definitions of it. Being may be rejected as a beginning by some because of its transition to Nothing and the resulting unity of Being and Nothing: let these see whether their beginning, which starts with the idea of the Beginning, and the analysis of this (which, though doubtless correct, also leads to the unity of Being and Nothing), will turn out more satisfactory than the method by which Being is made the beginning.

But there is yet a further observation to be made on this method. This analysis presupposes as already known the idea of the Beginning: it has therefore copied the methods of other sciences. These presuppose their object, and take leave to assume that everyone has the same idea of it, and is likely to discover in it roughly the same determinations that they themselves indicate and extract from the object in various ways by analysis, comparison, and other forms of reasoning. But that which constitutes the absolute Beginning must likewise be something otherwise known; now if it is something concrete, and therefore contains a multiplicity of determinations within itself, then this relation, which it is in itself, is assumed as something known: it is asserted to be something immediate, and this it is not; for it is merely a relation of distincts, and therefore contains mediation. Further, in the concrete the contingency and arbitrariness proper to analysis and to varying determination begin to operate. The determinations which are extracted depend on what each individual finds given in his own immediate and contingent idea. The relation contained in a concrete, that is, a synthetic unity, is necessary only in so far as it is not a datum, but is produced by the inherent movement of the moments tending back into this unity;—a movement which is the opposite of the analytic method, which is an activity belonging to the subject and external to the object.

What has been said implies this further point, that that with which we must begin, cannot be something concrete, something containing a relation within itself. For such presupposes a mediation and a transition within itself from a first to an other, of which process the concrete, now reduced to simplicity, would be the result. But the beginning must not be a first and an other: in a thing which in itself is first and an other, progress has already advanced a step. That which constitutes the beginning (and that is, the very Beginning itself) must therefore be taken, in its simple immediacy without content, as something not admitting analysis, hence as pure vacuity, as Being.

If anyone, impatient of the consideration of the abstract Beginning, should demand that we begin, not with the Beginning, but directly with the matter itself, the answer is that the matter is just this empty Being: it is in the course of the Science that we are to discover what the matter is; the Science must not therefore presuppose this as known.

If any other form is taken for the beginning in preference to empty Being, then the beginning suffers from the flaws mentioned. Those who remain dissatisfied with this beginning are asked to set themselves the task of beginning differently in order to avoid these faults.

There is however one novel beginning in philosophy, which recently has become famous and cannot be passed over without mention, namely that which begins with the Ego. It arose partly from the reflection that all that follows must be derived from the first truth, partly from the need that the first truth should be something known and, even more, something immediately certain. Such a beginning generally is not a contingent idea which can take a different form in different subjects. For, the ego, this immediate consciousness of self, first manifests itself partly as something immediate, partly as something known in a far higher sense than any other idea; things otherwise known, though they belong to the ego, are a content distinct from it and therefore contingent, whereas the ego is simple certainty of itself. But the ego in general is also something concrete, or rather the most concrete of all things—consciousness of self as of a world infinitely complex. In order to make Ego the Beginning and basis of philosophy, this concrete element must be removed by an absolute act by which the ego is purged of itself and is presented to its own consciousness as abstract ego. But this pure ego is now no longer immediate, nor is it the known and ordinary ego of our consciousness, to which the Science was to be linked immediately and equally for all. Such an act would really be an exaltation to the standpoint of pure knowledge, where the distinction between subjective and objective has disappeared. But as this elevation is demanded immediately, it is a subjective postulate: in order to prove itself a legitimate demand the movement of the concrete ego from immediate consciousness to pure knowledge would have to be proved and demonstrated upon itself from inner necessity. Without this objective movement pure knowledge, even when defined as “intellectual intuition.” appears as an arbitrary standpoint, or even as one of the empirical conditions of consciousness, with regard to which all depends on whether one individual finds it within himself or can produce it, and another not. But this pure ego must be pure essential knowledge, and pure knowledge is posited in the individual consciousness only through the absolute act of self-exaltation—it is not present immediately in consciousness; and it is just in this respect that the advantage is lost which is to arise from this beginning of philosophy, namely that it is something thoroughly well known which everyone finds immediately within himself as the starting-point of further reflection. Rather, in its abstract essential nature this pure ego is something quite unknown to ordinary consciousness, something which it does not find in itself. And here, on the contrary, there sets in the disadvantage of the illusion that we are speaking of something known, namely the ego of empirical self-consciousness, whereas in fact we are speaking of something remote from this consciousness. The determination of pure knowledge as ego involves a permanent recollection of the subjective ego, the barriers of which are to be forgotten, and preserves the idea that the propositions and relations yielded in the further development of the ego occur or are found in ordinary consciousness, since it is this of which they are asserted. This confusion, instead of immediate illumination, produces so much the more glaring complications and indeed a total loss of direction; among laymen especially it has led to the crudest misunderstandings.

Next, as regards the fact that the ego in general is determined as subjective, it is true that pure knowledge clears the ego of its limited meaning, according to which the object presents to it an insuperable opposition. But for this very reason it would at least be superfluous to retain this subjective attitude and the determination of pure essence as ego. Such a determination, however, not only involves this disturbing ambiguity, but, more closely regarded, it still remains a subjective ego. The actual development of the Science which starts from the ego shows that the object there persists in having and retaining its determination as Other relatively to the ego, so that this ego from which we start is not pure knowledge which has veritably overcome the opposition of consciousness, but is still imprisoned in the sphere of appearance.

This further essential observation must here be made: it is true that the ego in itself can be defined as pure knowledge or intellectual intuition, and asserted as a Beginning; but in philosophy what matters is not that which is there already in itself, or internally, but the presence in thought of the internal element and the determinateness in which the latter thus presents itself. Whatever element of intellectual intuition is present at the beginning of the Science, it cannot be anything but primary, immediate, and simple determination; or, if the object of such intuition is called the eternal or the divine or the absolute, the same applies to whatever of these elements is present in the beginning. Whatever name be applied of richer content than that expressed by mere Being, the only matter for consideration is how such an absolute enters into thinking knowledge and the expression of this. True, intellectual intuition is the forcible rejection of mediation and of demonstrative external reflection. But if it asserts more than simple immediacy, it asserts something concrete, something containing distinct determinations. But it has already been remarked that to express and represent such a thing is a mediating movement, which begins with one of the determinations and proceeds to the other, even although the latter returns to the former; and further, such a movement must not be arbitrary nor assertoric. Hence in such a representation a beginning is not made with the concrete, but with the simple immediate whence the movement starts. Further, if a concrete thing is taken as the beginning, there is lacking the proof which is demanded by the complex of determinations contained in the concrete.

The expression of the absolute, the eternal, or God (and God has the most undisputed right that the Beginning should be made with him), or the contemplation or thought of these, may contain more than pure Being: if that is so, such content has yet to manifest itself to thinking, (and not to presentational,) knowledge; for, however rich this content, the first determination which emerges into knowledge is something simple, for it is only the simple which does not contain something more than pure Beginning: the immediate alone is simple, for there only no transition has taken place from one to an other. If these richer forms of presentation, such as the Absolute, or God, express or contain anything beyond Being, then this is, in the Beginning, but an empty word and mere Being; so that this simple vacancy without further meaning is, absolutely, the Beginning of philosophy.

This consideration is so simple that the Beginning as such requires no preparation nor further introduction; and this preliminary discussion was not so much intended to deduce it as to remove all preliminaries.