I.3. Measure

Abstractly the statement may be made that in Measure Quality and Quantity are united. Being as such is the immediate self-identity of determinateness. This immediacy of determinateness has transcended itself. Quantity is Being which has returned upon itself in such a manner that it is simple self-identity as indifference to determinateness. But this indifference is merely externality—possessing its determinateness not in itself but in an Other. Thirdly, there is self-relating externality: as self-relation it is also transcended externality and has in itself its own difference from itself. This difference as externality is the quantitative moment, and, as having returned to itself, the qualitative moment.

Modality is enumerated among the categories of transcendental idealism after Quantity and Quality, and where Relation is inserted; so that it may be mentioned here. The category there means that it is the relation of the object to thought. In this idealism thought is essentially external to the thing-in-itself. In so far as other categories have only the transcendental determination of belonging to consciousness as its objective element, modality, which is the category of relation to the subject, to this extent relatively contains the determination of intro-reflection; that is, objectivity, which is stated to be a quality of the other categories, is lacking in the categories of modality; and these (in Kant’s expression) do not in the least add to the concept as determination of the object, but only express the relation to the possibility of cognition (Critique of Pure Reason, 2nd Ed., see pp. 99, 266).—The categories which Kant groups under Modality—Possibility, Actuality, and Necessity—will occur later in their place; that infinitely important triple form was not applied by Kant—for with him it appeared only as a formal flash of light—to the genera of his categories (Quantity, Quality, etc.); and this name too he applied only to their species. It was impossible for him, therefore, to find the third member for Quality and Quantity.

With Spinoza, too, the Mode is third after Substance and Attribute: he declares that the Mode is the affections of Substance, or is that element in an Other by virtue of which it is comprehended. According to this concept this third element is only externality as such; and indeed it has been mentioned elsewhere that in Spinoza in general rigid substantiality lacks the return into itself.

The observation here made extends more generally to those systems of Pantheism upon which thought has done its elaborating work. Being, the One, Substance, the Infinite, or Essence, is the first; in opposition to this abstract element the second, namely every kind of determinateness, can equally abstractly be grouped as that which is merely finite, accidental, perishable, unessential, and non-essential; and this is the next and ordinary step in purely formal thought. But the connexion of the second with the first makes itself so evident that both must needs be taken as one unity; and thus with Spinoza the Attribute is the whole Substance, that is, as taken by Understanding—itself a limitation or Mode: and Mode (which is the non-substantial in general which can be understood only from an Other) is thus the other extreme for Substance, the third in general. Indian Pantheism in all its monstrous imagination has also, taken abstractly, received this elaboration; this is the tempering thread which leads through its riot to this point of moderate interest, that Brahma, the One of abstract thought, passes through the shape of Vishnu (especially in the form of Krishna) to the third form, Siva. The determination of this third is Mode, change, arising and passing away, the field of externality in general. If this Indian triad has led to a comparison with the Christian, it must be recognized that they have a common element of conceptual determination; but it is essential that the difference be more definitely brought to consciousness: the difference is not only infinite, but true infinity constitutes the difference itself. According to its determination this third principle is the explosion of substantial unity into its opposite, and not its return to itself,—the non-spiritual, not Spirit. In the true triad not only unity is found, but harmony—the consummation of a pregnant and real unity, which in its wholly concrete determination is Spirit. The principle of Mode and change does not indeed exclude unity: thus with Spinoza the Mode as such is the false, and Substance alone is the true, and everything must be reduced to it; which is a jettison of all content into the void, into a unity merely formal and without content; and similarly, Śiva once more is the great whole, not distinct from Brahma: it is Brahma itself; that is, the difference and the determinateness vanish again, but are neither preserved nor transcended; unity is not led back to concrete unity, nor dissension to reconciliation. The highest goal for man transplanted into the sphere of arising and passing away, of modality in general, is submersion into unconsciousness, unity with Brahma, annihilation, which is the same as the Buddhist Nirvana, Nibbana, and so forth.

The Mode is abstract externality in general and indifference to qualitative and to quantitative determinations; and in essence what is external and unessential should not matter; but on the other hand it is often admitted that all depends upon the how and why. The Mode is thus declared essentially to belong to the substantial part of a thing. This very indefinite relation contains at least this, that this external part is the external not quite so abstractly.—

The ‘Mode here has the definite meaning of Measure. Spinoza’s Mode, like the Indian principle of Change, is the measureless. The Greek idea, though indeterminate as yet, that everything has a Measure (which led Parmenides to introduce, after abstract Being, Necessity as the ancient Limit imposed on all things), is the beginning of a much higher concept than that contained in Substance and the difference between Mode and Substance.

When more fully developed and reflected, Measure becomes Necessity; Fate and Nemesis were generally limited to the determinateness of Measure, which meant that what is presumptuous, or grows too high and great, is reduced to the other extreme by being brought down to annihilation, and that thus the mean of Measure, mediocrity, is restored.—“The Absolute, or God, is the Measure of all things” is a definition not more strongly pantheistic but infinitely more true than “the Absolute, or God, is Being.”—Measure is indeed an external way or manner, a more or less, but it is also reflected into itself, and is a determinateness not merely indifferent and external, but existing in itself. It is thus the concrete truth of Being \ and, therefore, mankind has revered in Measure something inviolable and holy.

The idea of Essence is already contained in Measure, namely that it is identical with itself in the immediacy of determinateness, so that this self-identity reduces the immediacy to a mediate; and also this mediate is mediated only through this externality, but is self-mediation; it is the reflection whose determinations are, but, thus being, exist only as moments of their negative unity. The qualitative is quantitative in Measure: determinateness or difference is indifferent, and, therefore, the difference is no difference, it is transcended: and this quantitativity, as return upon self, where it exists as the qualitative, constitutes that Being-in-and-for-Self which is Essence. But Measure is Essence only in itself or in the concept; and this concept of Measure has not yet been posited. Measure, while it is Measure, is the existent unity of the qualitative and the quantitative: its moments are as a Determinate Being, a Quality and its Quanta, which are inseparable only in themselves at first, but have not yet the meaning of this reflected determination. The development of Measure contains the differentiation of these moments, but also their relation, so that the identity which they are in themselves becomes their mutual relation, that is, is posited as such. The meaning of this development is the realization of Measure, where it posits itself as being related to itself and hence as a moment. This mediation determines it as being transcended; its immediacy and the immediacy of its moments disappear, and they exist as being reflected; and Measure, which thus has manifested itself as being what it is according to its concept, has passed over into Essence.

Measure now is immediate unity of the Qualitative and the Quantitative. Thus:—

first, it is a Quantum having qualitative meaning, and, therefore, existing as Measure. The process of further determination is, that the difference of its moments (qualitative and quantitative determinateness) appears in this self-determined entity. These moments further determine themselves as each a whole Measure, which thus is independent; and, these being essentially related to one another, Measure becomes, secondly, the relation of Specific Quanta as independent Measures. But at the same time their independence essentially is based on quantitative ratio and magnitudinal difference; thus their independence becomes a reciprocal transition. Consequently Measure perishes in the measureless.—But this Beyond of Measure is its negativity only in itself; hence, thirdly, the indifference of determinations of Measure is posited; and Measure (as real by virtue of the negativity which it contains) is posited as the Inverse Ratio of Measures, which, as independent Qualities, are essentially based only upon their Quantity and their negative relation to one another; they thus turn out to be no more than moments of their truly independent unity, which is their intro-reflection and’ its positing, that is, Essence.

The development of Measure which has been attempted in what follows is exceedingly difficult; it starts from immediate, external Measure, and should, therefore, on the one hand, proceed to the abstract further determination of the Quantitative (a natural mathematics), and, on the other, demonstrate the connexion between this Measure-determination and the Qualities of natural objects, at least in a general manner; for the exact demonstration of the connexion between Qualitative and Quantitative which arises from the concept of the concrete object belongs to the special science of the concrete,—examples of which may be looked up in the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, 3rd Ed. §§ 267 and 270, Observations on the Law of Gravity and that of free celestial motion. We may here observe generally that the various forms in which Measure realizes itself belong also to different spheres of natural reality. The complete and abstract indifference of developed Measure, that is, of its laws, can occur only in the sphere of Mechanism where the concrete corporeal is only matter, abstract itself; its qualitative differences essentially have the Quantitative for their determinateness; Space and Time are themselves pure externalities, and the multitude of materials or masses, the intensity of weight, are also external determinations having their peculiar determinateness in the Quantitative. However, such magnitudinal determinateness of the abstractly material is marred by plurality, and hence by a conflict of qualities, in the physical and even more in the organic sphere. And here not merely the conflict of qualities as such operates, but Measure is subordinated to higher relations, and the immanent development of Measure is reduced to the simple form of Immediate Measure. The members of the animal organism have a Measure which, as a simple Quantum, is in a ratio to other Quanta of the other members: the proportions of the human body are fixed ratios of such Quanta; and natural science has much to discover of the connexion of such magnitudes with the organic functions, on which they wholly depend. But Motion is the nearest example of the reduction of an immanent Measure to a magnitude merely externally determined. In the celestial bodies it is free motion determined only by the concept, and, therefore, its magnitudes also depend on it alone (see above); but it is reduced from organic to arbitrary or mechanically regular motion, that is, to an altogether abstract, formal motion.

And in the realm of Spirit a peculiar and free development of Measure takes place even less. It is evident, for instance, that a republican constitution, like that of Athens, or an aristocratic constitution tempered by democracy, can exist only where the State has a certain magnitude, and that in developed civic society aggregates of individuals belonging to different trades are in a certain relation to one another; but this yields neither laws of Measure nor peculiar forms of it. In the realm of Spirit as such differences occur of intensity of character, strength of imagination, of feelings, of conceptions, and so on; but determination does not pass beyond this indeterminate concept of strength or weakness. And it is realized how poor and wholly void, in the end, are these so-called laws which are set up about the relation of strength and weakness of sensations, images, and so on, when the psychologies are examined which labour on these matters.