I.2. Magnitude (Quantity)

We have indicated the difference between Quantity and Quality. Quality is primary and immediate determinateness; quantity is such determinateness as has become indifferent to Being. It is a limit which also is no limit, it is Being-for-Self which is simply identical with Being-for-Other, the Repulsion of many Ones which immediately is their Non-Repulsion or continuousness.

Now Being-for-Self has been so posited as not to exclude its Other but rather affirmatively to continue itself into it; hence it is Otherness (in so far as Determinate Being again arises in this continuity) and its determinateness simultaneously ceases to be simply self-related and is no longer the immediate determinateness of the determinately existing Something; instead, it is posited as self-repelling and as having its relation to itself, as determinateness, rather in some other Determinate Being (which is for itself); and, since also they exist as indifferent, intro-reflected, and relationless limits, determinateness is simply beyond itself; it is external to itself and is a Something as equally external; such a limit, together with the indifference of itself to itself and to Something, constitutes its quantitative determinateness.

Pure Quantity must here be distinguished from determinate quantity, or Quantum. As the former, Quantity is, first, real Being-for-Self, which has returned upon itself and as yet has no determinateness; as infinite, homogeneous unity which continues into itself.

Secondly, this passes over into a determinateness, which is posited of it as one which is none, or, rather, is only external. It becomes Quantum. Quantum is indifferent determinateness, that is, it passes beyond and negates itself; as this otherness of otherness it is caught in the infinite progress. Infinite Quantum, however, is the transcendence of indifferent determinateness, it is the rehabilitation of Quality.

Thirdly, Quantum in qualitative form is quantitative relation. Quantum merely passes beyond itself; in Relation it passes over into its otherness in such a way that the latter, which forms its determination, is posited simultaneously, and is another Quantum; we then find that it has returned to itself and that it is related to itself (namely in its otherness).

Further, this relation is based on the externality of Quantum; the quanta which are related (that is, whose self-relation consists in their being beyond themselves) are indifferent. Thus this relation is a merely formal unity of Quality and Quantity. The dialectic of this relation is its transition into their absolute unity, into Measure.

In the Something, its limit, as Quality, essentially is its determinateness. But if by limit we mean quantitative limit, and a field (for instance) changes this its limit, it remains what it was—field. Whereas if its qualitative limit is changed, then its determinateness, which makes it a field, is changed, and it becomes meadow, forest, and so on.—A red which becomes darker or lighter still is red; but if it were to change its quality, it would cease to be red and would become blue or some other colour.—This determination of magnitude as Quantum as deduced above—namely, an unchanging substratum of Being which is indifferent to its determinateness—can also be deduced from every other example.

By magnitude Quantum is meant, as in the examples cited, and not Quantity; this is the chief reason why this alien term must be borrowed.

The definition of magnitude which mathematicians employ also refers to Quantum. Magnitude is generally defined as something which may be increased or diminished. But to increase means to make something more great (maius), and to diminish to make it less great (minus). Thus there is a distinction between magnitude in general and itself, and magnitude appears as something of which the magnitude may be varied. The definition thus proves improper, since it employs the determination which it would define. In so far as the same determination must not be employed in it, “more” and “less” must be analysed into an affirmative addition (which, according to the nature of Quantum, is likewise external) and a subtraction (an equally external negation). Indeed, it is to this external kind both of Reality and of Negation that the nature of change determines itself in Quantum. The governing moment, therefore (which is the main matter) must not be mistaken in this incomplete expression; namely, the indifference to change, so that its own More and Less, its indifference to itself, lies in its very concept.