II.1.2. The Essentialities or Determinations of Reflection

Reflection is determinate Reflection; accordingly Essence is determinate Essence, or Essentiality.

Reflection is the showing of Essence into itself. Essence, as infinite return upon itself, is not immediate, but negative, simplicity: it is a movement through different moments, absolute self-mediation. But it “shows” into these its moments; and therefore they are themselves intro-reflected determinations.

Essence is, first, simple self-relation, pure Identity. This is its determination, which makes it, rather, indeterminateness.

Secondly, the proper determination is Difference, partly as external or indifferent Difference, Variety in general, and partly as opposed Variety or Opposition.

Thirdly, as Contradiction, Opposition reflects itself into itself and returns into its own ground.

The Determinations of Reflection were formerly cast into the form of propositions, in which it was said of them that they were of universal application. These propositions were counted as the universal Laws of Thought, lying at the root of all thought, absolute and undemonstrable in themselves, but recognized as true, and acknowledged, immediately and without contradiction, by every intelligence which seized their meaning.

Thus the essential determination of Identity is enunciated in the proposition: Everything is identical with itself, A = A; or, negatively, A cannot at once be A and not A.

It is not immediately evident why only these simple Determinations of Reflection are to be cast into this particular form, and not also the other categories, such as every determinateness of the sphere of Being. We would then have such propositions as Everything is, Everything has Determinate Being, and so on; or, Everything has Quality or Quantity, and so forth. For Being, Determinate Being, and the rest, are logical determinations, and as such are predicates of everything. Category, according to its etymology and its Aristotelian definition, is that which is predicated or asserted of the existent.—But a determinateness of Being is essentially a transition into the opposite; the negative of any determinateness is as necessary as the determinateness itself; and each immediate determinateness is immediately opposed by the other. When therefore these categories are embodied in such propositions, then the opposite propositions equally appear: each offers itself with equal necessity, and as an immediate assertion has at least an equal standing. One therefore would demand a proof as against the other, and hence these assertions could no longer have the character of immediately true and incontrovertible propositions of thought.

The Determinations of Reflection on the other hand are not of a qualitative kind. They are self-relating determinations, which hence are also free from determinateness as against any other. And further, since each such determinateness is a relation in itself, it contains the propositional form in itself already to that extent. For the main distinction between proposition and judgment is this, that in the former the content itself constitutes the relation, or that it is a determinate relation. Judgment on the other hand removes the content into the predicate as a universal determinateness, which exists for itself and is distinguished from its relation, the simple copula. When a proposition is to be converted into a judgment, the determinate content is changed—when, for instance, it is a verb—into a participle, by which method the determination itself and its relation to a subject are separated. The propositional form on the contrary lies ready at hand for the Determinations of Reflection, for they are an intro-reflected Positedness.—But, since they are pronounced as universal Laws of Thought, they require a subject for their relation, and this subject is Everything, or an A, which equally means each and every Being.

This propositional form on the one hand is a superfluity: the Determinations of Reflection are to be considered in and for themselves. And further these propositions are distorted in that they have for subject Being, or Every Something. For hereby they resuscitate Being, and predicate the Determinations of Reflection—Identity and so forth—of Something as a Quality, which belongs to the latter, not in the speculative meaning, but in this—that Something remains as subject in such a Quality because it is existent and not that it has passed over into Identity and so on as into its truth and its essence.

And, finally, though the Determinations of Reflection have the form of being self-identical, unrelated to other, and without opposite, yet they are determinate relatively to one another—as will appear when they are more closely examined, or as is immediately clear when they are considered as Identity, Variety, and Opposition; their form does not remove them from the sphere of Reflection, from transition and contradiction. Accordingly the various propositions which are set up as absolute Laws of Thought, are, more closely considered, opposite to one another, they contradict and cancel one another.—If everything is self-identical it is not distinguished: it contains no opposition and has no ground. Or when it is assumed that there are no two identical things, that is, each thing is different from every other, then A is not equal to A, A is therefore not opposite, and so on. If either of these propositions is assumed, the assumption of the other is barred.—A thoughtless consideration of these propositions enumerates them one after the other, so that they appear quite unrelated; it thinks only of their intro-reflectedness, without paying attention to their other moment, Positedness or their determinateness as such, which drags them forward to transition and to their negation.

1. Essence is simple immediacy as transcended immediacy. Its negativity is its Being: it is self-identical in its absolute negativity, by virtue of which otherness and the relation to Other has simply vanished in itself into pure self-equality. Essence is, then, simple Self-identity.

This Self-identity is the immediacy of Reflection. It is not the kind of Self-identity which is Being or also Nothing, but that kind which constructs itself into unity,—not a reconstruction out of an Other, but this pure construction out of and in self, which we have just examined: Essential Identity. In so far it is not abstract Identity, and not the product of a relative negation taking place outside it, and leaving the distinguished entity separated from it but in other respects subsisting external to it as before. On the contrary Being and every determinateness of Being has transcended itself, not relatively, but in itself: and this simple negativity of Being in itself is neither more nor less than Identity. In so far Identity is as yet the same as Essence.

Such thought as remains within the sphere of External Reflection, and knows no other kind of thought than this, can never succeed in recognizing Identity as it has here been taken, or—what is the same thing—Essence. Such thought concerns itself only with abstract Identity and—beside this and apart from it—with Difference. This thought takes Reason to be no more than a loom on which it combines externally and intertwines the warp (Identity) and then the woof (Difference); or again it imagines that by analysis it separately extracts Identity, and beside it also preserves Difference, and is an alternate positing of these two,—a positing of Identity when abstraction is made from Difference, and a positing of Difference when abstraction is made from positing Identity.—These assurances and opinions about the operation of Reason must quite be left on one side, for in a sense they are merely historical; and moreover, the contemplation of everything that is shows, in itself, that in its self-identity it is self-contradictory and self-different, and in its variety or contradiction, self-identical; it is in itself this movement of transition of one of these determinations into the other, just because each in itself is its own opposite. The concept of Identity (that it is simple self-relating negativity) is not a product of external reflection, but the result which appeared from Being itself. Now this Identity which is supposed to be external to Difference, and this Difference which is supposed to be external to Identity, are, on the other hand, products of that external reflection and abstraction which arbitrarily fixes itself at this point of indifferent variety.

2. This Identity at this point is Essence itself, and not yet any determination of it; it is the whole Reflection, and not a distinct moment of it. As absolute negation it is that negation which immediately negates itself; it is a Not-being and Difference which vanishes as it arises, or a differentiation which, differentiating nothing, immediately collapses into itself. Differentiation is the positing of Not-being as the Not-being of Other. But the Not-being of Other is cancellation of Other, and therefore of differentiation itself. Thus then differentiation is here found to be a self-relating negativity, a Not-being which is its own Not-being, having its Not-being in itself and not in another. So that we have here self-relating or reflected Difference, or pure Absolute Difference.

Or again Identity is intro-Reflection, which is Identity only as internal repulsion; and it is this repulsion as being intro-Reflection, repulsion which immediately recalls itself into itself. It is therefore Identity as self-identical Difference. But Difference is self-identical only in so far as it is not Identity but absolute Non-identity. But Non-identity is absolute in so far as it contains nothing which is Other to it, but only itself, that is, in so far as it is absolute Self-identity.

In itself then Identity is absolute Non-identity. But also it is the determination of Identity as against this. For as intro-Reflection it posits itself as its own Not-being; it is the whole, but as Reflection it posits itself as its own moment, as positedness; and it is the return from this to itself. Only when it is thus taken as moment does it become Identity as such, as determination of simple Self-identity, as opposed to Absolute Difference.

In this Observation I shall more closely consider Identity as the Law of Identity, which is commonly adduced as the first Law of Thought.

In its positive expression A = A this law is nothing more than empty tautology. It has therefore rightly been observed that this Law of Thought is without content and leads no further. Those therefore are stranded upon empty Identity who take it to be a truth in itself, and are in the habit of repeating that Identity is not Variety, but that Identity and Variety are different. They do not see that they are themselves here saying that Identity is different, for they say that Identity is different from Variety; and since this must at the same time be admitted to be the nature of Identity, their assertion implies that Identity has the quality of being different not externally but in its very nature.—But further, since they cling to this rigid Identity which has its opposite in Variety, they do not see that they are thereby making it into a one-sided determinateness, which as such has no truth. It is admitted that the Law of Identity expresses only a one-sided determinateness, that it contains only formal truth, which is abstract and incomplete.—But this correct judgment immediately implies that truth is complete only in the union of Identity with Variety, and therefore consists only in this unity. When it is asserted that this Identity is imperfect, the mind has before it as perfection that totality measured against which the Identity is imperfect; but when, on the other hand, Identity is held fast as absolutely separate from Variety, and in this separation is taken as essential, valid, true, then these conflicting assertions are nothing more than the mistake of combining the two ideas, first that Identity as abstract is essential, and secondly that, as such, it is also imperfect. There is here a lack of understanding of the negative movement, which Identity itself is represented to be in these assertions.—Again, when the expression of Identity is found in the saying that Identity is essential Identity as the separation from Variety, or in the separation from Variety, then immediately its expressed truth just consists in the fact that it is separation as such, or that it is essentially in separation, that is, that it is nothing for itself, but only a moment of separation.

With regard to the further confirmation of the absolute truth of the Law of Identity, this is based on experience, in so far as every consciousness can appeal to experience; since when the proposition A is A, a tree is a tree, is rehearsed to it, it immediately admits the proposition, and rests content in its immediate self-evidence, which needs no other confirmation or proof.

This appeal to experience, which states that every consciousness acknowledges the proposition, is partly a mere manner of speaking. It is not meant that the experiment with the abstract proposition A = A has been made upon every consciousness. So that, further, the appeal to an experience which has actually been reached is not serious; it is only an assurance that, if the experience were to be reached, the result would be general acknowledgment.—But if it is not the abstract proposition as such which is meant, but the proposition in its concrete application (from which the former is to be developed), then the assertion of its universality and immediacy would consist in the fact that every consciousness makes it the basis of its every manifestation, or that it lies implicitly in every one. But the concrete and the application are, precisely, the relation of the simple identical to a manifold which is different from it. Expressed as a proposition, the concrete would first be a synthetic proposition. It is true that abstraction might succeed in extracting by analysis the Law of Identity from the concrete itself or from its synthetic proposition; but then it would not have left experience as it is, but would have changed it; for experience contained Identity in unity with Variety, and is the immediate refutation of the assertion that abstract Identity as such is true; for the exact opposite—namely, Identity never separated from Variety—occurs in every experience.

On the other side, the pure Law of Identity is met only too frequently in experience, where it is seen clearly enough what respect is paid to the truth which it contains. When the question “What is a plant?” (for example) is met by the answer “A plant is—a plant,” the truth of this proposition is straightway admitted by the entire company upon which it is tested; and it will be said with equal unanimity that this answer says nothing. If one opens his mouth and promises to tell what God is, namely, that God is—God, expectation is cheated, for it anticipated a different determination; and if this proposition is absolute truth, such absolute verbiage is held in exceedingly small esteem; nothing will be considered more boring and tedious than a conversation which still chews the same cud, or such speeches which yet are supposed to be truth.

If we consider more closely this tedious effect of such truths, we find that the beginning, “A plant is——,” sets out to say something, to produce a further determination. But only a repetition is made, and the opposite has happened—nothing has been produced. Such idiology is therefore self-contradictory. Identity is not truth and absolute truth in itself, but quite the opposite; it is not a rigid simplicity, but a passing beyond self into self-dissolution.

The form of the proposition which expresses Identity contains more, then, than Identity simple and abstract: it contains this pure movement of Reflection, in which the Other figures only as Show and as immediate disappearance. A is is a beginning which imagines a different term that is to be reached; but this term never is reached; A is—A’, the difference is only a disappearance, and the movement withdraws into itself.—The propositional form can be regarded as the hidden necessity of adding to abstract Identity a plus in the shape of that movement.—Similarly an A, a plant or some other substratum, is added, which is a useless content and as such of no significance; but it constitutes Variety, which thus appears to come into the association accidentally. If Identity itself—“Identity is Identity”—is taken instead of the A and of any other substratum, then it is also admitted that any other substratum could be taken in place of it. So that if the appeal is made to what appearance shows us, then what it shows us is this, that in the expression of Identity Variety too immediately occurs,—or rather, more definitely (as was seen above), that this Identity is Nothing, negativity, or absolute Self-Difference.

The alternative expression of the Law of Identity, A cannot be both A and not-A, has a negative form: it is called the Law of Contradiction. The negative form (by which this Law is distinguished from the former), and its occurrence in Identity, are not usually explicitly justified.—This form is due to the fact that Identity, as the pure movement of Reflection, is simple negativity, which is contained in a more developed form in the second expression of the Law just quoted. A and a not-A (the pure Other of A) are pronounced; but the latter shows itself only in order to vanish. Identity is thus expressed in this proposition—as negation of negation. A and not-A are different, and these two different terms are related to one and the same A. Identity therefore is here represented as this Difference in one relation, or as the simple Difference in the terms themselves.

From this it is clear that the Law of Identity, and still more the Law of Contradiction, is not merely analytic, but synthetic. For in its expression the latter contains not only empty, simple self-identity, but also the Other of identity in general, and, further, absolute non-identity or self-contradiction. And the Law of Identity itself contains (as was shown of it) the movement of Reflection—Identity as the disappearance of otherness.

The result then of this consideration is, first, that the Laws of Identity and Contradiction, when they are intended to express as the truth only abstract Identity in opposition to Difference, are not Laws of Thought, but quite the opposite; secondly, that these Laws contain more than is meant by them, namely this opposite—Absolute Difference itself.

Difference is negativity which contains Reflection, the Nothing which is proclaimed in tautology, the essential moment of Identity itself, which is both determined as being its own negativity and also is different from Difference.

1. This Difference is Difference in and for itself, Absolute Difference, the Difference of Essence.—It is Difference in and for itself, and not Difference effected by an external entity: self-relating and therefore simple Difference.—It is essential that Absolute Difference be taken as simple. In the Absolute Difference between A and Not-A, it is the simple “not” which as such constitutes the Difference. Difference itself is a simple concept. Two things are different, it is said, “in that” they etc.—“In that,” that is, in one and the same respect, in the same basis of determination. And this basis is the Difference of Reflection, and not the otherness of Determinate Being. One Determinate Being and another are posited as falling apart; each of these existents, which are determinate as against each other, has an immediate Being for itself. On the other hand, the Other of Essence is the Other in and for itself, and not the Other of another Other which is external to it, simple determinateness in itself. In the sphere of Determinate Being, too, otherness and determinateness turned out to be of this nature, that each is simple determinateness and identical opposition; but this identity showed itself to be only the transition of one determinateness into the other. Here, in the sphere of Reflection, Difference emerges as a reflected Difference, which is posited as that which it is in itself.

2. Difference in itself is self-relating Difference: it is thus its own negativity—Difference not from an Other, but from its own self: it is not itself, but its Other. But that which is different from Difference is Identity. Difference is therefore both itself and Identity. The two together constitute Difference: it is the whole and its moment.—It may equally be said that Difference, as simple Difference, is no Difference, and is Difference only in relation to Identity; but, much rather, as Difference, it contains both Identity and this relation itself.—Difference is the whole and its own moment, just as Identity too is its whole and its moment.—This may be considered the essential nature of Reflection and the definite fundamental basis of every activity and self-motion.—Difference and also Identity both constitute themselves moment or positedness, because, as Reflection, they are negative self-relation.

This Difference, which is the unity of itself and Identity, is Difference determinate in itself. It is not transition nor relation to an external Other; its Other—Identity—is within itself; and similarly Identity, when it has entered into the determination of Difference, has not lost itself in it as in its Other, but preserves itself in it and is its intro-Reflection and moment.

3. Difference has the two moments of Identity and Difference; thus each is a positedness and determinateness. But in this positedness each is relation to itself. One—Identity—is, immediately, the moment of intro-Reflection; but the other equally is difference—Difference in itself, reflected Difference. Since Difference has two such moments, which are themselves intro-Reflections, it is Variety.

1. Identity is in itself cleft into Variety, because it is Absolute Difference in itself, and as such posits itself as its own negative, and because further these its moments—itself and its negative (intro-Reflections)—are identical with themselves; or again, because it itself immediately transcends its negation, and in its determination is intro-reflected. The distinct parts subsist as different from and indifferent to one another, for each part is self-identical, having Identity for its bottom and element; or again, what is different is what it is only in its opposite, namely Identity.

Difference constitutes the other-being, as such, of Reflection. The Other of Determinate Being has immediate Being for ground: therein the negative consists. In Reflection, on the other hand, Self-identity (reflected immediacy) constitutes the subsistence of the negative and its indifference.

The moments of Difference are Identity and Difference itself. They are different because they are intro-reflected or self-relating: thus in the determination of Identity they are self-relations; Identity is not related to Difference, nor is Difference to Identity; each moment is thus related only to itself, and they are therefore not determinate as against each other.—Now in this manner they are not different in themselves, and therefore Difference is external to them. The different entities are not then related to each other as Identity and Difference, but only as different in general, indifferent to each other and to their determinateness.

2. In Variety as the indifference of Difference, Reflection has altogether become external to itself: Difference is only a positedness, it is only in so far as it is transcended, but also it is itself the whole of Reflection.—If this is considered more closely, then both Identity and Difference, as they have just been determined, are Reflections, each being the unity of itself and its Other—in other words, the whole. But now the determinateness, which makes them only Identity or only Difference, has become transcended. They are not Qualities for the reason that their determinateness, by virtue of intro-Reflection, exists only as negation. We have therefore a twofold fact—intro-Reflection as such and determinateness as negation, or positedness. Positedness is Reflection which is external to itself; it is negation as negation, and accordingly it is, in itself self-relating negation and intro-Reflection, but only in itself; and it is related to it as to an external term.

Reflection in itself and External Reflection are accordingly the two determinations in which the moments of Difference—Identity and Difference—posited themselves. They are these moments themselves, in so far as they have now determined themselves.—Reflection in itself is Identity; but it is determined as indifferent to Difference, not as quite without it but as maintaining towards it an attitude of self-identity: it is Variety. It is Identity which has reflected itself into itself in such a manner that it is really the One Reflection of the two moments in itself: both are intro-Reflections. Identity is this one Reflection of both, which contains Difference only as indifference, and is Variety in general.—External Reflection, on the other hand, is their determinate Difference, not as absolute intro-Reflection, but as a determination to which self-existent Reflection is indifferent: its two moments—Identity and Difference itself—are thus externally posited determinations which are not in and for themselves.

Now this external Identity is Likeness, and external Difference, Unlikeness.—Likeness is Identity, but only as a positedness, an Identity which is not in and for itself.—And similarly Unlikeness is Difference, but only as external Difference which is not in and for itself the Difference of the unlike. Whether something is or is not like another something concerns neither term: each is referred only to itself, and is what it is, in and for itself. Identity or Non-identity, as Likeness and Unlikeness, relates only to their aspect from a third view-point, which falls without their sphere.

3. External Reflection refers the different to Likeness and Unlikeness. This process of referring, this comparison, passes backwards and forwards between Likeness and Unlikeness. But this oscillating process of relation between Likeness and Unlikeness is quite external to these determinations; and also they are not related to each other, but each is related separately to a third term. In this alternation each immediately manifests itself for itself.—External Reflection as such is external to itself; determinate Difference is negated Absolute Difference, and accordingly it is not simple and is not intro-Reflection; the latter is external to it. Consequently its moments fall apart, and are related to intro-Reflection (which stands over against them) as external to each other.

Reflection is thus estranged from itself, and Likeness and Unlikeness come to view in it as unrelated to each other: it separates them by relating them to one and the same term, by means of “in so far,” of sides and respects. The different terms, which are one and the same thing, and have both Likeness and Unlikeness related to them, are thus like each other from the one side, but unlike from the other, and in so far as they are like they are not unlike. Likeness is related only to itself, and in the same manner Unlikeness is just Unlikeness.

But in this their separation they only cancel each other. It was intended that contradiction and dissolution should be kept off from them by the fact that some thing is like another in one respect but unlike in another; but precisely this severance of Likeness and Unlikeness is their destruction. For both are determinations of Difference; they are relations to each other (one is what the other is not); like is not unlike, and unlike not like; and both have this relation essentially, and, apart from it, no significance. As determination of Difference each is what it is as being different from its other. But, by virtue of their mutual indifference, Likeness is related only to itself, and similarly Unlikeness is only its own respect and Reflection for itself. Each accordingly is like itself, and Difference, since they have no determinateness one against the other, has vanished: in other words, each now is Likeness and no more.

This indifferent respect or external Difference thus transcends itself and is its own negativity in itself. It is that negativity which, in comparison, belongs to the comparing term. This term passes from Likeness to Unlikeness and back; it thus allows one to vanish in the other, and is indeed the negative unity of both. At first it is beyond the compared term and also beyond the moments of comparison, being a subjective activity which falls without them. But in fact this negative unity is the nature itself of Likeness and Unlikeness, as was seen. It is, precisely, independent respect (and each one is independent respect) which is that self-relation which transcends their difference and therefore themselves.

In this aspect, as moments of External Reflection, and as external to themselves, Likeness and Unlikeness vanish together in their likeness. But, further, this their negative unity is also posited in them; for Reflection which is in itself is external to them, or they are the Likeness and Unlikeness of a third term which is other than they. What is Like is thus not like itself; and what is Unlike is unlike, not itself, but another (which is unlike it), and it is therefore itself Like. The Like, and the Unlike, is, therefore, its own Unlike. Each accordingly is this Reflection which makes Likeness to be both itself and Unlikeness, and Unlikeness to be both itself and Likeness.

Likeness and Unlikeness constituted the side of positedness as against the compared term (the Various), which had determined itself against them as self-existent Reflection. But this term has hereby likewise lost its determinateness as against them. Precisely Likeness and Unlikeness, the determinations of External Reflection, are Reflection which is only in itself: the Various as such was to have been this; they are its merely indeterminate Difference. Self-existent Reflection is self-relation without negation, abstract self-identity, and therefore positedness itself.—The merely Various passes then through positedness into negative Reflection. The Various is merely posited Difference, Difference therefore which is not Difference, and therefore is its own negation in itself. Thus Likeness and Unlikeness itself (or positedness) passes back through indifference or self-existent Reflection into negative self-unity, into Reflection which is in itself the Difference between Likeness and Unlikeness. That Variety, whose indifferent sides also are just moments, since they constitute one negative unity, is Opposition.

Variety, like Identity, is formulated in its own Law. And these two Laws are kept in a relation of indifferent Variety relatively to each other, so that each is valid without respect to the other.

“All things are different,” or, “There are no two things which are alike.”—This proposition is indeed the opposite of the Law of Identity, for it states that A has Variety, that is, A is also not A; or A is unlike another, and then it is not A in general, but rather a determinate A. In the Law of Identity any substratum may be put in place of A; but A as Unlike can no longer be interchanged with any other. It is not indeed to be various from itself, but only from an other; but this Variety is its proper determination. As self-identical A it is the indeterminate; but as determinate, it is the opposite of this; it has no longer only self-identity, but also a negation, that is, a Variety of itself from itself.

It is a quite superfluous proposition which states that all things are different from one another, for the plural of things immediately contains multiplicity and quite indeterminate Variety.—But the proposition “there are no two things which are entirely alike” expresses more, namely, determinate Variety. Two things are not only two—numerical plurality is but indifference—but they are made various by a determination. Imagination is struck by the proposition that there are no two things which are alike,—as in that courtly anecdote which tells how Leibniz brought it up among the ladies, and induced them to look among the leaves of trees, to see if they should find two which were alike.—Happy times for metaphysics, when it was the occupation of courtiers, and no greater effort was needed in testing its propositions than that of comparing leaves of trees!—The reason why this proposition is striking is contained in what was said, namely, that duality (or numerical plurality) contains no determinate Variety, and that Variety as such, in its abstraction, so far is indifferent to Likeness and Unlikeness. Imagination, when it further passes over to determination, accepts these moments themselves as indifferent to each other, believing that either the one or the other, mere Likeness of things—without Unlikeness—suffices to afford determination; or that things are various even when they are only numerically many—that is, when they are various in general—and not unlike. But the Law of Variety expresses this—that things are differentiated by Unlikeness, and that the determination of Unlikeness is as proper to them as that of Likeness; for determinate Difference is constituted only by the two together.

Now surely this proposition, that the determination of Unlikeness belongs to all things, requires proof: it cannot be set up as an immediate proposition, for the common method of cognition itself demands for the connection of different determinations in a synthetic proposition a proof, or the production of a third term in which they are mediated. This proof would have to demonstrate the transition of Identity into Variety, and next the transition of Variety into determinate Variety, or Unlikeness. This is not usually done; but it results from the fact that Variety or external Difference is in truth intro-reflected Difference (or Difference in itself), and that hence the indifferent subsistence of the Various is mere positedness, and therefore not external and indifferent Difference, but one relation of the two moments.

And this also contains the dissolution and nullity of the Law of Variety. No two things are perfectly alike; if so, they are like and also unlike: like, in that they are things, or, generally, are two,—for each is a thing and a One as much as the other, and each therefore the same thing as the other;—and they are unlike ex hypothesi. We have then this determination, that both moments—Likeness and Unlikeness—are different in one and the same thing, or that the Difference while falling apart is one and the same relation. It has thus passed over into Opposition.

It is true that the coextensiveness of the two predicates is kept disjunct by the “in-so-far,” when it is true of two things that “in so far as” they are alike, “in so far” they are not unlike; or that in one side or respect they are alike, but in the other side or respect unlike. This removes the unity of Likeness and Unlikeness from the thing; and that which would be its own Reflection and the Reflection of Likeness and Unlikeness in itself, is held fast as a Reflection external to the thing. It is this Reflection, accordingly, which in one and the same activity distinguishes the two sides of Likeness and Unlikeness; it consequently contains both in one activity, and reflects and allows the one to show in the other.—But the customary tenderness for things, whose only care is that they shall not contradict one another, forgets here as elsewhere that this is no solution of the contradiction, which is merely planted elsewhere, namely, into subjective or external reflection; and that the latter does in fact contain the two moments—which this removal and transplantation proclaim to be a mere positedness—in one unity as transcended and related to each other.

In Opposition, determinate Reflection, or Difference, is perfected. It is the unity of Identity and Variety; its moments are various in one Identity, and thus are opposite.

Identity and Difference are the moments of Difference as confined within the latter; they are reflected moments of its unity. But Likeness and Unlikeness are externalized Reflection; their self-identity is not only the indifference of each to that which is different from it, but also to Being-in-and-for-Self as such; it is self-identity as opposed to intro-reflected Identity; and therefore it is immediacy which is not intro-reflected. The positedness of the sides of External Reflection is consequently a Being, and their not-positedness, a Not-being.

If the moments of Opposition are more closely considered, they are seen to be intro-reflected positedness or determination in general. Positedness is Likeness and Unlikeness; these two, each being reflected into itself, constitute the determinations of Opposition. Their intro-Reflection consists in the fact that each in itself is the unity of Likeness and Unlikeness. Likeness is only in Reflection which uses Unlikeness as its standard of comparison and consequently mediates by means of its other and indifferent moment; similarly Unlikeness is only in the same reflecting relation in which Likeness is.—Each then of these moments is, in its determinateness, the whole. It is the whole in so far as it also contains its other moment; but this its other zs, and is indifferently; each thus contains the relation to its Not-being, and is only intro-Reflection, or the whole which essentially relates itself to its Not-being.

This intro-reflected Self-likeness which contains in itself the relation to Unlikeness, is the Positive: Unlikeness, which contains the relation to its Not-being (or Likeness), is the Negative.—Or again both are Positedness; and now, in so far as the differentiated determinateness is taken as differentiated determinate self-relation of Positedness, so far Opposition is (a) Positedness reflected into its Self-likeness, and (b) the same reflected into its Unlikeness to self: it is Positive and Negative.—The Positive is Positedness as reflected into Self-likeness; but that which is reflected is Positedness, that is, negation as negation; and therefore this intro-Reflection has for determination relation to Other. The negative is Positedness as reflected into Unlikeness; but Positedness is Unlikeness itself; and therefore this Reflection is the self-identity of Unlikeness and absolute self-relation.—Thus we can say of both that Positedness reflected into Self-likeness has Unlikeness in it, and Positedness reflected into Unlikeness to self also has Likeness.

Thus Positive and Negative are the sides, now independent, of Opposition. They are independent because they are in themselves the intro-Reflection of the whole, and they appertain to Opposition in so far as it is determinateness which is intro-reflected as a whole. Their independence allows them to constitute Opposition determinate in itself. Each is itself and its Other; and for this reason each has its determinateness not in an Other but in itself.—Each is self-related only as relating itself to its Other. This has a twofold aspect: each is relation to its Not-being as cancellation of this otherness in itself; its Not-being is only a moment within each itself. But on the other hand Positedness has here become a Being, an indifferent persistence; and consequently, while each contains its Other, this latter is also the Not-being of that in which it is supposed to be contained only as moment. Each therefore is only in so far as its Not-being is, and is only in an identical relation.

The determinations which constitute Positive and Negative consist then in this, that Positive and Negative are, first, absolute moments of Opposition: their subsistence is, inseparably, one Reflection; and it is one mediation in which each is by virtue of the Not-being of its Other, and therefore by virtue of its Other and its own Not-being.—Thus they are opposed one to the other; that is, each stands to the other in this relation only; it is not true that one is positive and the other negative, but both are negative to each other. Thus in general each is, first, only in so far as the other is; it is what it is through the other, or through its own Not-being; it is only Positedness. Secondly, it is in so far as the other is not; it is what it is through the Not-being of the other; it is intro-Reflection.—But both these systems together are only one mediation of Opposition in general, in which they in general are only posited terms.

But, further, this mere Positedness is, generally, intro-reflected; and according to this moment of External Reflection, Positive and Negative are indifferent to that first Identity, in which they are only moments; in other words, that first Reflection is the peculiar intro-Reflection of Positive and Negative, and each is its own Positedness in itself, and thus each is indifferent to this its Reflection into its Not-being, or indifferent to its own Positedness. Here the two sides are merely various; and in so far as their determinateness, which makes them positive and negative, constitutes their Positedness as against each other, so far each is not thus determinate in itself, but is only determinateness in general; thus to each side belongs the determinateness either of Positive or Negative; but they are interchangeable, and each side is of such a kind that it can be taken equally well as positive or as negative.

But, thirdly, Positive and Negative are not only a posited term, nor yet merely indifferent; but their Positedness or the relation to Other in a unity which they are not themselves, is retracted into each. Each is in itself positive and negative; Positive and Negative are the Determination of Reflection in and for itself; and it is positive and negative only in this intro-Reflection of the Opposite. The Positive has in itself the relation to Other, which contains its determinateness; similarly the Negative is not negative as against an Other, but also contains the determinateness which makes it negative.

Thus each—Positive as well as Negative—is independent and self-subsistent self-unity. It is true that the Positive is a Positedness, but in such a manner that for it Positedness is such only as transcended. It is the Not-opposite, Opposition transcended, but as side of Opposition itself—Something may be determined as being positive in relation to an other-being, but only in such a manner that it is its nature not to be something posited: it is intro-Reflection, which negates other-being. But its Other, the Negative, is itself no longer Positedness nor moment, but an independent Being; and hence negating intro-Reflection of the Positive is determined as excluding from itself this its Not-being.

This Negative which is taken as absolute Reflection is not the immediate Negative, but is Negative as transcended Positedness, the Negative in and for itself which is based upon itself positively. As intro-Reflection it negates its relation to Other; its Other is the Positive, which is an independent Being;—and consequently its negative relation to it is, to exclude it from itself. The Negative is the self-subsistent Opposite, as against the Positive, which is the determination of transcended Opposition,—in other words, the self-based and complete Opposition, which is opposed to self-identical Positedness.

Here then Positive and Negative are positive and negative not only in themselves but in and for themselves. They are these in themselves in so far as abstraction is made from their exclusive relation to Other and they are taken only according to their determination. Something is positive or negative in itself when it is supposed to be so determined not only against other. But when Positive and Negative are not Positedness and therefore not Opposite, then each is the immediate, Being and Not-being. But Positive and Negative are the moments of Opposition, and their Being-in-Self constitutes only the form of their intro-reflectedness. Something is positive in itself, apart from relation to the Negative; and something is negative in itself, apart from relation to the Negative: in this determination merely the abstract moment of this reflectedness is held fast. The self-existent Positive or Negative, on the other hand, means essentially that to be opposed is not mere moment nor belongs to comparison, but is the peculiar determination of the sides of Opposition. So that they are not positive or negative in themselves apart from the relation to other, but this relation (being exclusive) constitutes their determination or Being-in-Self; here then they are this also in and for themselves.

The concept of Positive and Negative as used in arithmetic must here be noticed. It is there assumed to be known; but since it is not taken in its determinate difference, it does not escape insoluble difficulties and complications. We have just reached the two real determinations of Positive and Negative—apart from the simple concept of their opposition,—namely, first that a merely different and immediate Determinate Being is the base, whose simple intro-Reflection is distinguished from its Positedness, which is Opposition itself. The latter therefore is counted only as not being in and for itself, and although it belongs to the Various, so that each in general is a term of opposition, yet it also persists indifferently for itself; it does not matter which of the two opposed Varia is considered as positive or as negative.—But, secondly, the Positive is that which is Positive in itself, and the Negative that which is Negative in itself, so that the Various is not indifferent to it, but has here its determination in and for itself.—These two forms of Positive and Negative occur in the very first determinations in which they are used in arithmetic.

At this point + a and − a are opposite magnitudes in general; a is the unit, which is in itself and is their common foundation, indifferent itself to opposition, and here forming a dead base without further concept. − a is designated as negative and + a as positive, but one is an opposed term as much as the other.

Further, a is not only simple basic unity, but as + a and − a it is the intro-Reflection of these opposites; there are two different a’s, and it is indifferent which of the two is to be designated as positive or negative: both have separate persistence, and are positive.

According to the first aspect + y − y = 0; or, in − 8 + 3, the units which are positive in 3 are negative in 8. Opposite units cancel each other when combined. An hour’s journey to the east followed by a similar journey west ends in the cancellation of the first journey; the greater the liabilities, by so much less are the assets, and an amount of assets cancels a similar amount of liabilities. At the same time the hour’s journey east is not the positive journey in itself, nor is the journey west the negative journey: these directions are indifferent to this determinateness of the Opposition; it is a third respect, which falls without them, that makes the one positive and the other negative. So too liabilities are not in and for themselves the Negative; they are so only in relation to the debtor: for the creditor they are a positive asset, a sum of money or anything having a definite value, which becomes liability or asset according to an external respect.

The opposites cancel each other in their relation, so that the result is zero; however, they also contain their identical relation, which is indifferent to the Opposition itself; and now they constitute One. It has just been said that the sum of money is one sum, and the a only one a in + a and − a; and the journey is one journey only and not two, one eastwards and the other westwards. Similarly an ordinate is the same on whichever side of the axis it is taken, and in so far + y − y = y; the ordinate is only the ordinate, and has only one determination and one law.

But, further, the opposites are not only one indifferent, but two indifferents. For, being opposite, they are also intro-reflected, and thus persist as various.

Thus − 8 + 3 contains altogether eleven units; + y and − y are ordinates on the opposite side of the axis, where each one is a Determinate Being indifferent to this limit, and to its opposite; and thus + y − y = 2y.—Also the journey made eastwards and westwards is the sum of a double effort, or the sum of two periods of time. Similarly in economics a quantum of money or of wealth is not only this one quantum as a means of subsistence, but is double: it is a means of subsistence for the creditor as well as for the debtor. The wealth of a nation is not computed as merely the sum-total of ready money and of the value of property movable and immovable which it contains; still less is it the difference which remains after liabilities have been deducted from assets. Capital—even if its respective determinations of asset and liability nullify each other—remains, first, positive capital (+ a − a = a); and, secondly, since it is a manifold liability, being lent and re-lent, it becomes an extremely manifold instrument.

But it is not only the case that opposite magnitudes are, first, merely and in general opposite, and, secondly, real or indifferent. For, further, although Quantum itself is indifferently limited Being, yet that which is Positive in itself and that which is Negative in itself occurs in it too. For instance, a, if not preceded by a sign, is counted as being meant for positive if it has to be designated. If it were to become merely an opposite in general, it might equally well be taken as − a. But the positive sign is given it immediately, because the Positive for itself has the peculiar meaning of immediate—the self-identical—in contrast with Opposition.

Further, when positive and negative magnitudes are added or subtracted, they are counted as magnitudes which are positive or negative in themselves and do not become positive and negative externally, merely through the relation of addition and subtraction. In 8—(—3) the first minus means opposition to 8, but the second, (− 3), counts as a term opposite in itself apart from this relation.

This becomes more clearly evident in multiplication and division. Here the Positive must essentially be taken as the not-opposite, the Negative on the contrary as the opposite, and not both determinations equally as opposite terms in general. The textbooks do not pass beyond the concept of opposite magnitudes in general in their proofs of the behaviour of the signs in these two species of calculation; these proofs are therefore incomplete and involved in contradictions.—In fact Plus and Minus in multiplication and division receive the more determinate meaning respectively of Positive and Negative in itself, because the relation of factors—they are as Unit and Amount to each other—is not a mere relation of increase and decrease as in addition and subtraction, but is qualitative; whence also Plus and Minus acquire the qualitative meaning of Positive and Negative.—Without this determination, and merely out of the concept of opposed magnitudes, the false conclusion may easily be drawn that if − a × + a = − a², conversely + a × − a = + a². One factor denotes Amount and the other Unit, and, in general, the first factor denotes the former, so that the difference between the two expressions − a × + a and + a × − a is that in the first + a is Unit a, while in the second the reverse is the case. Now in the first case it is commonly said that if I am to take + a − a times, I take + a, not simply a times, but also, in the opposite manner, + a times—a; and since it is plus I have to take it negatively, and the product is − a².—But if, in the second case, − a is to be taken + a times, then likewise − a is not to be taken − a times, but in the opposite determination, that is, + a times. It follows from the reasoning applied in the first case that the product must be + a². And the same holds good for division.

This is a necessary conclusion so long as Plus and Minus are taken only as opposite magnitudes in general. In the first case the Minus is credited with the power of changing the Plus; but in the second case Plus was not supposed to have a similar power over Minus, although it is an opposite magnitudinal determination as much as Minus. But in fact Plus has not this power, since it must here be taken in its qualitative determination as against Minus, the factors having a qualitative relation to each other. In this regard then the Negative here is the Opposite in itself as such, and the Positive is the indeterminate and indifferent in general; it is indeed also the Negative, but the Negative of an Other and not in itself.—Accordingly a determination as negation is introduced only through the Negative, and not through the Positive.

So then −a × −a = +a² because the negative a is to be taken not only in the opposite manner (in that case it would have to be taken as multiplied by—a), but because it is to be taken as negative. But the negation of negation is the Positive.

1. Difference in general contains its two sides as moments; in Variety these fall apart indifferent; in Opposition as such they are sides of Difference,—one is determined only by the other and they are therefore only moments; but also they are determinate each in itself, indifferent to each other, and mutually exclusive: independent Determinations of Reflection.

Of these one is the Positive and the other the Negative, but the former as that which is positive in itself and the latter as that which is negative in itself. Each has indifferent independence for itself by virtue of the fact that it contains the relation to its other moment: each is therefore complete and self-contained opposition.—As this Whole, each is self-mediated by its Other and contains it. But it is also self-mediated by the Not-being of its Other: it is therefore self-existent unity and excludes the Other.

The independent Determination of Reflection excludes the other in that same respect in which it includes it, wherein resides its independence: being independent it thus excludes its own independence, which consists, first, in the fact that it contains the determination which is other to it and for this reason only is not a relation to something external, but also and with equal immediacy in the fact that it is itself and excludes the determination which is negative to it. Thus it is Contradiction.

Already Difference in general is Contradiction in itself; for it is the unity of terms which are only in so far as they are not one, and the separation of terms which are only as separated in the same relation. But Positive and Negative are posited Contradiction, because they are negative unities which posit themselves, while each is its own self-transcendence and the positing of its opposite.—They constitute Determining Reflection in its excluding aspect: excluding is one distinction, and each of the distinguished terms, as exclusive, is itself the whole exclusion; consequently each in itself excludes itself.

If we consider the two independent Determinations of Reflection for themselves, we see that the Positive is positedness as reflected into self-equality; positedness which is not relation to an other, and thus persistence in so far as positedness is transcended and excluded. But hereby the Positive converts itself into the relation of a Not-being,—into a positedness.—It is thus Contradiction: it is the positing of self-identity, and, by excluding the Negative, it makes itself into the Negative of something, that is, into that Other which it excludes from itself. This, as excluded, is posited as free from the excluding term, and consequently as intro-reflected and itself excluding. Thus exclusive Reflection is the positing of the Positive as excluding the Other in such a manner that this positing is immediately the positing of its Other, which excludes it.

This is the absolute Contradiction of the Positive; but it is immediately the absolute Contradiction of the Negative: the positing of both is one single Reflection.—The Negative considered by itself, as against the Positive, is positedness as reflected into self-inequality, the Negative as Negative. But the Negative itself is the unequal or Not-being of an Other: accordingly the Reflection into its inequality is rather its self-relation.—Negation in general is the Negative as Quality, or immediate determinateness; but the Negative as such is the Negative as related to its own Negative or Other. Now if this Negative is taken simply as identical with the first, then it—as well as the first—is merely immediate; they are then not taken as Other to each other, not, therefore, as Negative: the Negative in general is not immediate.—But, since further each is just as much that which the other is, this relation of unequal terms is just as much their identical relation.

This, then, is that same Contradiction which the Positive is, namely positedness or negation as self-relation. But the Positive is this Contradiction only in itself, while the Negative is posited Contradiction; for in its intro-Reflection, which makes it to be Negative in and for itself or to be self-identical as being Negative, it has the determination of being not-identical, the exclusion of Identity. The Negative is and means to be self-identical as opposed to Identity, and consequently, by virtue of its exclusive Reflection, to exclude itself from itself.

The Negative then is the totality of Opposition, resting upon itself as Opposition, Absolute Difference not relating itself to other; as Opposition it excludes Identity from itself,—but also thus excludes itself; for as self-relation it determines itself to be that very Identity which it excludes.

2. Contradiction resolves itself.

In self-exclusive Reflection, which has just been under consideration, Positive and Negative each in its independence transcends itself; each is simply the passing over, or rather the self-transference, into its opposite. This restless disappearance of opposites in themselves is the closest unity which is evolved from Contradiction; it is the Nought.

But Contradiction contains not only the Negative but also the Positive; or, self-exclusive Reflection is also Positing Reflection: the result of Contradiction is not only Nought.—The Positive and Negative constitute the positedness of independence; their self-negation transcends the positedness of independence. It is this which in truth perishes in Contradiction.

Intro-Reflection, through which the sides of Opposition make themselves into independent self-relations, is at this point their independence as distinguished moments: they thus are this independence only in themselves, for as yet they are still opposites, and the fact that they are so in themselves constitutes their positedness. But their exclusive Reflection transcends this positedness and makes them into independent terms which are for themselves, which are independent not only in themselves but also through the negative relation of each to its Other; in this manner their independence is also posited. But further through this their positing they make themselves into a positedness. They destroy themselves in determining themselves as the self-identical, but therein rather as the Negative, as a self-identical something which is relation to other.

But, more closely considered, this exclusive Reflection is not only this formal determination. It is independence which is in itself, and is the transcendence of this positedness; only by this transcendence is it unity which is for itself and is in truth independent. By the transcendence of otherness or positedness it is true that positedness, the Negative of an Other, is reintroduced. But in fact this negation is not only first and immediate relation to other, not positedness as transcended immediacy, but also it exists as transcended positedness. Exclusive Reflection of independence, since it is exclusive, becomes positedness, but is equally transcendence of its positedness. It is transcending self-relation: first it here transcends the Negative, and secondly it posits itself as Negative, and this is just the same Negative which it transcends: in transcending the Negative it posits the Negative and simultaneously transcends it. In this manner the exclusive determination is Other to itself and is the negation of this Other; and consequently the transcendence of this positedness does not again become positedness as the Negative of an Other, but is that collapse into self which is positive self-unity. Thus independence is unity which returns into itself through its own negation, since it returns into itself through the negation of its own positedness. It is the unity of Essence, which makes it self-identical through the negation not of an Other but of itself

3. On this its positive side, where independence in Opposition as exclusive Reflection makes itself into positedness and equally transcends the point where it is positedness, Opposition not only has perished, but has gone back into its Ground.—The exclusive Reflection of independent Opposition makes it a negative and merely posited entity; and thereby it reduces its determinations, Positive and Negative, which hitherto have been independent, to terms which are only determinations. Positedness is thus made into positedness, and has therefore returned generally into its self-unity: it is simple Essence, but Essence as Ground. By the transcendence of its self-contradictory determinations Essence has been restored, with this determination, however, that it is exclusive unity of Reflection,—simple unity which determines itself as Negative, but in this positedness is immediately self-equal and has coincided with itself.

First, then, independent Opposition passes back into Ground through its Contradiction; Opposition is the first or immediate term from which a beginning is made, and the transcended Opposition or the transcended positedness is itself a positedness. Thus Essence as Ground is a positedness—something which has become. But, conversely, the only positing which has taken place is this, that Opposition or positedness is here transcended only as positedness. Therefore Essence as Ground is exclusive Reflection only in so far as it turns itself into positedness, or in so far as Opposition (which before was the starting-point and was immediate) is the merely posited and determinate independence of Essence,—Opposition being merely the self-transcendent in itself, but Essence that which, in its determinateness, is intro-reflected. Essence as Ground excludes itself from itself, it posits itself \ its positedness—which is the excluded element—exists only as positedness, as self-identity of the Negative. This independent element is the Negative posited as such; and it is self-contradictory, and therefore remains immediately in Essence as in its Ground.

Resolved Contradiction is, then, Ground, that is, Essence as unity of Positive and Negative. In Opposition, the determination has developed into independence; but Ground is this perfected independence; in it the Negative is independent Essence, but as Negative; and thus it is Positive just as much as it is that which in this negativity is self-identical. Opposition and its Contradiction are therefore transcended as much as preserved in Ground. Ground is Essence as positive self-identity, which, however, simultaneously relates itself to itself as negativity; it thus determines itself and becomes excluded positedness; now this positedness is the totality of independent Essence, and Essence is Ground, since in this its negation it is self-identical and positive. Self-contradictory and independent Opposition was then already itself Ground; now only the determination of self-unity has been added; and the latter emerges when the independent opposite terms transcend each itself, become each its Other, and so perish, but perishing merely coincide with self; so that while perishing—that is, in its positedness or negation—each now in truth becomes intro-reflected and self-identical Essence.

Positive and Negative are the same. This expression belongs to external reflection when it institutes a comparison between these two determinations. But no external comparison should be made between these any more than between any other categories; they should be considered in themselves, that is, their own Reflection should be considered. But here it appeared that each essentially is the showing of itself in the Other, and is the positing of itself as of the Other.

Imagination, in so far as it does not consider Positive and Negative as they are in and for themselves, may indeed be referred to comparison, so that it may learn how baseless are these distinguished terms which it assumes to be quite rigidly opposed to each other. Even a slight experience in reflective thought will perceive that, if anything has just been determined as Positive, it straightway turns into Negative if any progress is made from that base, and conversely that a Negative determination turns into Positive; that reflecting thought becomes confused in these determinations and contradicts itself. Insufficient acquaintance with the nature of these determinations thinks that this confusion is a fault which should not occur, and attributes it to a subjective error. And in fact this transition does remain mere confusion in so far as the necessity for this metamorphosis is not present to consciousness.—But it is a simple consideration, even for external reflection, that, anyhow, Positive is not an immediate identity, but is partly a term opposite to Negative, having significance only in this relation and therefore containing the Negative in its concept, and partly that in itself it is the self-relating negation of bare positedness or of the Negative, and therefore is absolute negation in itself—Similarly the Negative, which is opposed to Positive, has meaning only with reference to this its Other: it therefore contains it in its concept. But the Negative has its own persistence also apart from any relation to the Positive; it is self-identical; thus it is that which the Positive was supposed to be.

The opposition of Positive and Negative is especially taken in the meaning that the former (although etymologically it expresses being posited or positedness) is to be an objective entity, and the latter a subjective, belonging only to external reflection and in no way concerned with the objective sphere, which is in and for itself and quite ignores it. And indeed if the Negative expresses nothing but the abstraction of subjective caprice or the determination of an external comparison, then of course it is not present for the objective Positive, that is, the latter is not in itself related to any such empty abstraction; but then its determination as Positive is also only external to it.—To quote an example of the fixed opposition of these Determinations of Reflection, light in general is reckoned as the purely Positive and darkness as the purely Negative. But light, in its infinite expansion and in the force of its maturing and life-giving activity, has essentially the nature of absolute negativity. On the other hand darkness, which is simple, or the not self-differentiating womb of generation, is simple self-identity—the Positive. Darkness is taken as the merely Negative in this meaning, that it is mere absence of light and therefore just is not present for it,—so that light, when relating itself to darkness, is supposed to relate itself not to an Other but purely to itself, and thus darkness must simply disappear before it. But of course light is dimmed into grey by darkness; and apart from this merely quantitative change, it also undergoes the qualitative change that by this relation it is determined as a colour.—And so, too, virtue, for example, does not exist without struggle; it is indeed the highest and perfect struggle, and consequently is not merely the Positive, but is absolute negativity; and it is virtue not only as compared with vice, but is resistance and struggle in itself. Or again, vice is not deficiency of virtue (for innocence, too, is this deficiency), and it differs from virtue not only for external reflection, but is opposed to virtue in itself,—it is evil. Evil persists in being founded in itself as against good: it is positive negativity. But innocence, which is lack both of good and of evil, is indifferent to both determinations, and is neither positive nor negative. But this lack, too, must be taken as determinateness: it must be considered on the one hand as the positive nature of something, and on the other as relating itself to an opposite,—every nature leaves its innocence, its indifferent self-identity, relating itself through itself to its Other and thereby destroying itself, or, in the positive sense, passing back into its Ground.—And truth, too, is the Positive, as knowledge corresponding with its object; but it is this self-equality only in so far as knowledge has already taken up a negative attitude to the Other, has penetrated the object, and transcended that negation which the object is. Error is a Positive as an opinion affirming that which is not in and for itself, an opinion which knows itself and asserts itself. But ignorance is either indifference to truth and error, and thus determined neither as positive nor as negative,—and if it is determined as a deficiency, this determination belongs to external reflection; or else, objectively and as proper determination of a nature, it is the impulse which is directed against itself, a negative which contains a positive direction.—It is of the greatest importance to recognize this quality of the Determinations of Reflection which have been considered here, that their truth consists only in their relation to each other, and therefore in the fact that each contains the other in its own concept. This must be understood and remembered, for without this understanding not a step can really be taken in philosophy.

The determination of Opposition too has been made into a law, the so-called Law of the Excluded Middle.

Something is either A or not-A: there is no third.

This law implies first that everything is a term of an Opposition, is determined either as positive or negative.—It is an important proposition, which follows from the fact that Identity passes over into Variety and Variety into Opposition. But it is not generally understood in this meaning; usually it is intended to signify that, of all predicates, either some particular predicate itself, or its not-being, can be predicated of a thing. The opposite here means only deficiency, or rather indeterminateness; and the proposition is so insignificant that it is not worth enunciating. If the determinations of sweet, green, square, are taken—and all predicates are supposed to be taken—and it is said of Spirit that it is either sweet or not sweet, green or not green, and so forth, then this is a triviality which leads to nothing. The determinateness or predicate is referred to something; the law states that the something is determinate; now the law is supposed essentially to contain this, that the determinateness determines itself more closely, becoming determinateness in itself, or Opposition. But instead of this it only passes in this trivial sense from determinateness to its not-being in general, that is, back to indeterminateness.

The law of the excluded middle differs also from the laws of identity and contradiction which were considered above: the latter of these states that there is nothing which is at once A and not-A. It implies that there is nothing which is neither A nor not-A, that there is no third term which is indifferent to this opposition. In fact, however, this third term, which is indifferent to the opposition, is contained in the law itself—namely A. This A is neither + A nor − A, and also it is + A as well as − A.—The something which was to be either + A or not-A is here related both to + A and to not-A; and again, since it is related to A it is supposed not to be related to not-A, and also not to A, since it is related to not-A. The something thus is itself the third term which was supposed to be excluded. The opposite determinations are posited in the something as much as (in this positing) they are transcended, and therefore the third (which here has the form of a dead something), taken more profoundly, is the unity of Reflection into which Opposition passes back as into Ground.

The primary Determinations of Reflection—Identity, Variety, and Opposition—are established in a proposition; therefore the determination into which they pass over as into their truth (namely Contradiction) should much more be comprehended in a law; it should be enunciated that all things are contradictory in themselves, in this meaning, that this proposition as opposed to the others expresses the truth and essence of things.—Contradiction, which emerges in Opposition, is no more than developed Nothing; and this is already contained in Identity, and occurred in the expression that the law of identity states nothing. This negation further determines itself into Variety and into Opposition, which now is posited Contradiction.

But it has been a fundamental prejudice of hitherto existing logic and of ordinary imagination that Contradiction is a determination having less essence and immanence than Identity; but indeed, if there were any question of rank, and the two determinations had to be fixed as separate, Contradiction would have to be taken as the profounder and more fully essential. For as opposed to it Identity is only the determination of the simple immediate, or of dead Being, while Contradiction is the root of all movement and life, and it is only in so far as it contains a Contradiction that anything moves and has impulse and activity.

Ordinarily Contradiction is removed, first of all from things, from the existent and the true in general; and it is asserted that there is nothing contradictory. Next it is shifted into subjective reflection, which alone is said to posit it when it relates and compares. But really—it is said—it does not exist even in this reflection, for it is impossible to imagine or to think anything contradictory. Indeed, Contradiction, both in actuality and in thinking reflection, is considered an accident, a kind of abnormality or paroxysm of sickness which will soon pass away.

With regard to the assertion that Contradiction does not exist, that it is non-existent, we may disregard this statement. In every experience there must be an absolute determination of Essence—in every actuality as well as in every concept. The same remark has already been made above, under Infinity, which is Contradiction as it appears in the sphere of Being. But ordinary experience itself declares that at least there are a number of contradictory things about, contradictory arrangements and so forth, the contradiction being present in them and not merely in an external reflection. But it must further not be taken only as an abnormality which occurs just here and there: it is the Negative in its essential determination, the principle of all self-movement, which consists of nothing else but an exhibition of Contradiction. External, sensible motion is itself its immediate existence. Something moves, not because it is here at one point of time and there at another, but because at one and the same point of time it is here and not here, and in this here both is and is not. We must grant the old dialecticians the contradictions which they prove in motion; but what follows is not that there is no motion, but rather that motion is existent Contradiction itself.

And similarly internal or self-movement, or impulse in general (the appetitive force or nisus of the monad, the entelechy of absolutely simple Essence), is nothing else than the fact that something is itself and is also deficiency or the negative of itself, in one and the same respect. Abstract self-identity has no life; but the fact that Positive in itself is negativity causes it to pass outside itself and to change. Something therefore has life only in so far as it contains Contradiction, and is that force which can both comprehend and endure Contradiction. But if an existent something cannot in its positive determination also encroach on its negative, cannot hold fast the one in the other and contain Contradiction within itself, then it is not living unity, or Ground, but perishes in Contradiction.—Speculative thought consists only in this, that thought holds fast Contradiction, and, in Contradiction, itself, and not in that it allows itself to be dominated by it—as happens to imagination—or suffers its determinations to be resolved into others, or into Nothing.

In movement, impulse, and the like, the simplicity of these determinations hides the contradiction from imagination; but this contradiction immediately stands revealed in the determinations of relations. The most trivial examples—above and below, right and left, father and son, and so on without end—all contain Contradiction in one term. That is above which is not below; “above” is determined only as not being “below,” and is only in so far as there is a “below,” and conversely: one determination implies its opposite. Father is the Other of son, and son of father, and each exists only as this Other of the other; and also the one determination exists only in relation to the other: their Being is one persistence. Father is something for himself apart from the relation to son, but then he is not father, but a man in general; and similarly above and below, right and left are intro-reflected and are something apart from the relation, but only as places in general.—Opposite terms contain Contradiction in so far as they are negatively related to each other in the same respect, or cancel out and remain indifferent to each other. Imagination passes over to the moment of indifference of the determinations, and so forgets their negative unity, remembering them only as merely different; and in this determination right is no longer right, nor left left, and so forth. But in fact imagination still keeps right and left before itself, and therefore has these determinations before itself as negating each other, one in the other, and also as not negating each other in this unity but existing each indifferently for itself.

Thus although imagination everywhere has Contradiction for content, it never becomes aware of it; it remains an external reflection, which passes from Likeness to Unlikeness, or from negative relation to intro-reflectedness of the different terms. It keeps these two determinations external to each other, and has in mind only these and not their transition, which is the essential matter and contains the Contradiction.—On the other hand intelligent reflection, if we may mention this here, consists in the understanding and enunciating of Contradiction. It does not express the concept of things and their relations, and has only determinations of imagination for material and content; but still it relates them, and the relation contains their contradiction, allowing their concept to show through the contradiction.—Thinking Reason, on the other hand, sharpens (so to speak) the blunt difference of Variety, the mere manifold of imagination, into essential difference, that is. Opposition. The manifold entities acquire activity and liveliness in relation to one another only when driven on the sharp point of Contradiction; thence they draw negativity, which is the inherent pulsation of self-movement and liveliness.

It has already been remarked of the ontological proof of the existence of God that the fundamental determination there is the sum-total of all realities. It is usually proved of this determination, first, that it is possible because it contains no Contradiction, since reality is taken only as reality without barriers. It was remarked that this sum-total thus becomes simple indeterminate Being, or, if the realities are indeed taken as a plurality of determinate entities, becomes the sum-total of all negations. And if the differentiation of Reality is taken more closely, it changes from Variety into Opposition and so into Contradiction; and the sum-total of all realities ends as absolute self-contradiction. This conclusion is rejected by that common abhorrence which Contradiction rouses in imaginative (not in speculative) thought, as the vacuum does in nature; for such thought does not pass beyond the one-sided consideration of the resolution of Contradiction into nothing, and does not perceive its positive side, where it becomes absolute activity and Absolute Ground.

Altogether it has appeared from the consideration of the nature of Contradiction that in itself it is not, so to speak, a blemish, deficiency, or fault in a thing if a contradiction can be shown in it. On the contrary, every determination, every concrete, every concept is essentially a union of distinguished and distinguishable moments, which pass over through determinate and essential difference into contradictory moments. It is true that this contradictory concretion resolves itself into nothing—it passes back into its negative unity. Now the thing, the subject, or the concept is itself just this negative unity: it is contradictory in itself, but also it is resolved Contradiction; it is the Ground which contains and supports its determinations. The thing, subject, or concept, as intro-reflected in its sphere, is its resolved Contradiction; but its whole sphere again is determinate and various; it is therefore finite, and this means contradictory. Itself it is not the resolution of this higher Contradiction; but it has a higher sphere for its negative unity or Ground. Accordingly, finite things in their indifferent multiplicity are simply this fact, that, contradictory in themselves, they are intro-refracted and pass back into their Ground.—The nature of the true inference of an absolutely necessary Essence from a finite and contingent entity will be considered below. Such an essence is not inferred from the finite and contingent as from a Being which both is and remains Ground, but, as is also implied immediately in contingency, this absolute necessity is inferred from a merely collapsing and self-contradicting Being; or rather it is demonstrated that contingent Being passes automatically back into its Ground, where it transcends itself,—and, further, in this retrogression it posits Ground in such a manner only that it makes itself into the posited element. In an ordinary inference the Being of the finite appears as the Ground of the absolute: the absolute is because the finite is. The truth, however, is that the absolute is just because the finite is self-contradictory opposition—just because it is not. In the former meaning an inference runs thus: The Being of the finite is the Being of the absolute;—but in the latter: The Not-being of the finite is the Being of the absolute.