II.1.1. Show

Essence comes out of Being and appears to stand opposed to it; here this immediate Being is the Unessential.

But secondly, it is more than only the Unessential, it is Essenceless Being, it is Show.

Thirdly, this Show is not external and Other to Essence, but is its own Show. The showing of Essence in itself is Reflection.

Essence is Being transcended. It is simple self-identity, but only in so far as it is the general negation of the sphere of Being. Essence is thus opposed by immediacy, which immediacy is of such a kind that it caused Essence to arise out of it, conserving and maintaining itself in this transcendence. Essence itself, in this determination, is existent immediate Essence, and Being is negative only in relation to Essence and not in and for itself; Essence is hence a determinate negation. Thus Being and Essence are again related simply as Other, for each has a Being, an immediacy, and these are indifferent to each other, and according to this Being both are of equal value.

But at the same time Being in opposition to Essence is the Unessential; it is determined with regard to the latter as already transcended. But in so far as it is related to Essence merely as an Other, Essence is not properly Essence, but only an existence otherwise determinate—the Essential.

The distinction between Essential and Unessential has allowed Essence to fall back into the sphere of Determinate Being, for so far Essence is here determined as an immediate existent, and therefore merely as Other as opposed to Being. Here then the sphere of Determinate Being is the basis: it is a further determination, external to Determinate Being, that that which is Being in this Determinate Being is Being-in-and-for-Self; and conversely, while Essence is Being-in-and-for-Self, it is this only in opposition to an other—that is, in a determinate respect.—Hence, in so far as an Essential and an Unessential are distinguished in any Determinate Being, this distinction is an external positing, a severance of one part of a Determinate Being from another part, which, however, does not touch the Determinate Being itself,—a separation which falls within a third element. What belongs to the Essential and what to the Unessential is here left indeterminate. What constitutes it is some external consideration or point of view, and the same content must therefore be regarded at one time as essential and at another as unessential.

More closely considered, Essence is reduced to Essential as opposed to Unessential because Essence is taken only as transcended Being or Determinate Being. In this way Essence is only first negation, or that negation which is determinateness, and which narrows down Being to Determinate Being, and Determinate Being to Other. But Essence is the absolute negativity of Being: it is Being itself, Being determined not merely, however, as an Other, but Being which, both as immediate Being and as immediate negation (negation which is infected with Other-being), has transcended itself. Being or Determinate Being has here not preserved itself as Other than Essence; and that immediacy which is still distinguished from Essence is not merely an unessential Determinate Being, but an immediacy which is null in and for itself; it is mere Unessence, or Show.

1. Being is Show. The Being of Show consists entirely in the fact that Being is transcended and is null; it has this nullity in Essence, and apart from its nullity and from Essence it is not. It is the Negative posited as Negative.

Show is all the rest which remains over from the sphere of Being. But it has the appearance of having an immediate side independent of Essence, and, generally, of being its Other. The Other in general contains the two moments of Existence and Non-existence. And since the Unessential has no Being, it retains nothing of its Other-being save the pure moment of Non-existence: Show is this immediate Non-existence, and it is this—in the determinateness of Being—in such a manner that it has existence only in relation to another, in its Non-existence: it is that instability which is only in its negation. There remains for it therefore only the pure determinateness of immediacy; it exists as reflected immediacy, that is, as that immediacy which exists only through the mediation of its negation, and is nothing in relation to its mediation but the empty determination of the immediacy of Non-existence.

Show then is the phenomenon of scepticism; or again the appearance of idealism is such an immediacy, which is neither Something nor Thing, and, generally, is not an indifferent Being which could be outside its determinateness and relation to the subject. Scepticism did not dare to affirm “it is”; modern idealism did not dare to regard cognition as a knowledge of the Thing-in-itself: with the former, Show was supposed to have no basis at all in any Being; with the latter, the Thing-in-itself was supposed incapable of entering into cognition. But at the same time scepticism admitted manifold determinations of its Show, or rather its Show had for content all the manifold riches of the world. In the same manner the “appearance” of idealism comprehends the whole range of these manifold determinatenesses. Thus both Show and “appearance” are immediately determined as manifold. The content may then have no basis in any Being nor in any thing nor thing-in-itself: for itself it remains as it is: it has only been translated from being into Show; thus Show contains these manifold determinatenesses, which relatively to one another are immediate, existent, and other. Show itself is, then, immediately determinate. Its content may be this or that; but whatever content it has is not posited by itself but belongs to it immediately. The idealism of Leibniz, Kant or Fichte, or any other form of idealism, did not reach beyond Being as determinateness, beyond this immediacy; and scepticism also failed. Scepticism allows the content of its Show to be given it: for it, it is an immediate datum, what content it is to have. The monad of Leibniz develops its presentations out of itself; but it is no creative and combining force,—the presentations arise in it like bubbles; they are indifferent and immediate relatively to one another, and therefore to the monad itself. Similarly Kant’s “phenomenon” is a given content of perception: it presupposes affections, determinations of the subject which are immediate to one another and to the subject. The infinite “resistance-principle” of Fichte’s idealism refuses, perhaps, to be based on any thing-in-itself, so that it becomes purely a determinateness in the Ego. But this determinateness is immediate and a barrier to the Ego, which, transcending its externality, incorporates it with itself; and though the Ego can pass beyond the barrier, the latter has in it an aspect of indifference by virtue of which it contains an immediate Not-being of the Ego, though itself contained in the Ego.—

2. Show thus contains an immediate presupposition, an aspect independent of Essence. But it is not to be proved of Show that, in so far as it differs from Essence, it transcends itself and returns to Essence;—for Being has returned into Essence in its totality, but Show is that which in itself is null. All that is to be proved is, that the determinations which distinguish it from Essence are also determinations of Essence, and, further, that that determinateness of Essence which Show is, is transcended in Essence itself.

It is the immediacy of Not-being which constitutes Show; but this Not-being is nothing else than the negativity of Essence in itself. In Essence, Being is Not-being. Its nullity in itself is the negative nature of Essence itself. But the immediacy or indifference which this Not-being contains is the proper and absolute Being-in-Self of Essence. The negativity of Essence is its self-identity, or its simple immediacy and indifference. Being has preserved itself in Essence in so far as the latter has this self-identity in its infinite negativity; and by virtue of this, Essence itself is Being. Hence the immediacy which, in Show, belongs to determinateness with respect to Essence, is nothing else than the immediacy of Essence itself, an immediacy, however, which is not, but is just mediated or reflected; and this is Show,—Being not as Being, but only as the determinateness of Being as against mediation: Being as Moment.

Two moments thus constitute Show: Nullity, which however persists, and Being, which however is Moment; or again negativity which is in itself, and reflected immediacy. Consequently these moments are the moments of Essence itself: there is no Show of Being in Essence, nor Show of Essence in Being; Show in Essence is not the Show of an Other, but Show in itself, Show of Essence itself.

Show is Essence itself in the determinateness of Being. Essence has a Show by virtue of the fact that it is determinate in itself and thereby distinguished from its absolute unity. But this determinateness is equally transcended in it. For Essence is stability; that is, it is self-mediating through its negation, and this it is itself. It is thus the identical unity of absolute negativity and of immediacy.—This negativity is negativity in itself; it is its own self-relation, and thus immediacy in itself; but it is negative self-relation and repulsive self-negation, and thus this immediacy which is in itself, is negation or determinateness with regard to it. But this determinateness is itself absolute negativity, and is this determining which immediately as determination is self-transcendence and return upon itself.

Show is the negative which has a being, but in an Other, in its negation: Show is instability which in itself is transcended and is null. It is thus the negative which returns into itself, or instability as that which in itself is unstable. This relation to itself of the negative or of instability is its immediacy; it is other than itself; it is its determinateness as against itself, or it is negation as against the negative. But negation as against the negative is negativity which refers itself to itself only: it is absolute transcendence of determinateness itself.

In Essence then Show is a determinateness which is infinite: it is the negative which coincides only with itself: it is thus determinateness which as such is stability and is not determinate.—Conversely stability as self-relating immediacy equally is, absolutely, determinateness and moment, and exists only as self-relating negativity.—This negativity which is identical with immediacy, and thus this immediacy which is identical with negativity, is Essence. Thus Show is Essence itself, but Essence in a determinateness, and this in such a manner that determinateness is only its moment: Essence is the showing of itself in itself.

In the sphere of Being, Being, as immediate, is faced by Not-being, which also is immediate, and their truth is Becoming. In the sphere of Essence, first Essence and the Unessential, next Essence and Show, are opposed to each other; and the Unessential and Show are remnants of Being. But both (as well as the difference of Essence from them) consist in nothing else than the fact that Essence first is taken as something immediate, not as it is in itself (not, that is, as immediacy which is such as pure mediation or absolute negativity). Thus this first immediacy is only the determinateness of immediacy. And this determinateness of Essence is accordingly transcended simply when it is shown that the Unessential is only Show, and that Essence rather contains Show in the form of that infinite internal movement which determines its immediacy as negativity and its negativity as immediacy, and thus is its showing within itself. In this its self-movement Essence is Reflection.

Show is the same as Reflection; but it is Reflection as immediate: for Show which has entered into itself and thereby is emptied of its immediacy, we have the term, borrowed from a foreign language, of Reflection.

Essence is Reflection—the movement of Becoming and transition which remains within itself; here that which is distinguished is determined simply as that which is negative in itself, as Show.—In the Becoming of Being, Being is the basis of determinateness, which is relation to other. The reflecting movement on the other hand is the Other as negation in itself, which has being only as self-relating negation. Or again, this self-relation being this very negation of negation, we have here negation as negation, or as such as has its being in its negation, that is, as Show. Thus here the Other is not Being plus negation or limit, but negation plus negation. But the primary entity which is opposed to this Other—immediacy or Being—is just this self-identity of negation,—negated negation, or absolute negativity. Hence this self-identity or immediacy is not a primary entity which forms a point of departure and passes over into its negation, nor is it an existent substratum moving through Reflection; rather immediacy is this movement itself and no more.

Becoming in Essence—its reflective movement—is hence the movement from Nothing to Nothing and through Nothing back to itself. The transition or Becoming transcends itself in its transition: that Other which arises in the course of this transition is not the Not-being of a Being but the Nothing of a Nothing; and it is this—the fact that it is the negation of a Nothing—which constitutes Being.—Being exists only as the movement of Nothing to Nothing, and thus is Essence; and Essence does not contain this movement in itself but is this movement, an absolute Show and pure negativity, which has nothing without it that could negate it, but negates only its own negativity, which is only in this negation.

This pure and absolute Reflection which is the movement from Nothing to Nothing, further determines itself.

It is, first, Positing Reflection.

Secondly, it begins from the presupposed immediacy and thus is External Reflection.

Thirdly, however, it transcends this presupposition, and, since in this act of transcendence it itself presupposes, it is Determining Reflection.

Show is that which is null or essenceless; but this null or essenceless has not its Being in an Other, in which it shows, but its Being is its own self-identity; this self-interchange of the negative has determined itself as the absolute Reflection of Essence.

This self-relating negativity is, then, its own negation. In the same measure, therefore, in which it is negativity, it is negativity transcended. Or again, it is itself the negative, it is simple self-identity, or immediacy. Its substance therefore is that it is, and is not, itself; and this in one unity.—

Reflection is, first, the movement of Nothing to Nothing, it is negation which coincides with itself. This coincidence with self is just simple self-identity, or immediacy. It is not, however, the case that this collapse is the transition of negation into identity with self as into its otherness; but Reflection is transition as the transcendence of transition, for it is immediate collapse of the negative with itself. This coincidence is, then, first, self-identity or immediacy; but, secondly, this immediacy is the self-identity of the negative, or self-negating identity; it is that immediacy which is in itself the negative, the negative of its own self, in that it is what it is not.

Thus the self-relation of the negative is its return to itself; it is immediacy as the transcendence of the negative; but it is immediacy absolutely only as this relation, or as return from a negative, and thus it is self-transcending immediacy.—This is positedness, immediacy purely as determinateness or as self-reflecting. This immediacy, which exists only as the return of the negative to itself, is the same immediacy which constitutes the determinateness of Show, and from which the reflecting movement appeared above to begin. But it cannot begin from this immediacy, which in fact exists only as return or Reflection itself. Reflection, then, is the movement which is return, and therefore at this point alone is that which begins or returns.

It is a positing, in so far as it is immediacy as a return; for there is no Other there, nor anything out of or into which it could return; it exists therefore only as return, or as the negative of itself. But further this immediacy is transcended negation and transcended return to self. As the transcendence of the negative, Reflection is the transcendence of its Other, namely, of immediacy. Reflection is, then, immediacy as a return, as the self-coincidence of the negative, and thereby it is also the negation of the negative as such: Reflection is Presupposition.—Or again, immediacy as return is only the negative of itself, it is just the fact that it is not immediacy; but Reflection is the transcendence of the negative of itself, it is self-coincidence; thus it transcends its positing, and is presupposition because in its positing it is the transcendence of positing. In presupposition, Reflection determines the return to itself to be its own negative, or that the transcendence of which is Essence. It is its attitude to itself, but to itself as its own negative; and thus only is it self-confined and self-relating negativity. And altogether immediacy is manifested only as return, and is the same kind of negative as is that Show of the beginning which is negated in the return. The return of Essence is thus its own self-repulsion. Or, intro-Reflection is essentially the presupposing of that out of which it is the return.

It is only through the transcendence of its self-identity that Essence is self-identity. It presupposes itself, and it is itself the transcendence of this presupposition; and conversely this transcendence of its presupposition is the presupposition itself.—Reflection thus finds itself faced with something immediate, beyond which it passes, and out of which it is the return. But this return is only the presupposition of that which has been found. And this latter arises only as it is left behind; its immediacy is transcended immediacy.—Conversely transcended immediacy is return to self, the arrival of Essence at itself, Being simple and self-identical. Thus this arrival at self is self-transcendence, it is self-repellent and presupposing Reflection; and its self-repulsion is its arrival at itself.

From these considerations it results that the reflecting movement must be taken as absolute recoil into itself. For the presupposition of return into self—that from which Essence emerges (and except as this return it cannot be)—lies only in the return itself. The over-passing beyond the immediate, whence Reflection begins, arises in fact only from this over-passing; and the over-passing beyond the immediate is the arrival at the immediate. The movement taken as a progress immediately reverses within itself, and thus only is self-movement,—movement which arises from itself in so far as positing Reflection presupposes, but again, as presupposing Reflection, just posits.

Reflection thus is both itself and its not-being, and is itself only in so far as it is its own negative, for then only is the transcendence of the negative also a coincidence with self.

That immediacy which, as transcendence, it presupposes for itself, exists simply only as positedness, as that which is transcended in itself, which is not distinguished from the return into itself, and itself is only this return. But it is also determined as negative, as being immediately opposed to one, and, therefore, to an Other. Thus Reflection is determinate; and, since in this determinateness it has a presupposition and begins from the immediate as from its Other, it is External Reflection.

Reflection as absolute Reflection is Essence showing within itself, and presupposes only Show, or positedness: as presupposing Reflection it is immediately only Positing Reflection. But External or real Reflection presupposes itself as transcended, as its own negative. In this determination it is twofold. It is, first, that which is presupposed, or that intro-Reflection which is the immediate; and, secondly, it is Reflection which, as negative, refers itself to itself; it refers itself to itself as to that other which is its not-being.

External Reflection, then, presupposes a Being, but, first, not in this sense, that its immediacy is only positedness or moment, but rather that this immediacy is self-relation, while the determinateness exists only as moment. Its relation to its presupposition is this, that the latter is the negative of Reflection, but this in such a manner that this negative as such is transcended.—Reflection in its positing immediately transcends its positing, and thus has an immediate presupposition. Thus it meets Positing as something from which it begins, whence coming it is return to self and negation of this its negative. That this presupposed something is a negative or posited entity in no way, however, concerns it; this determinateness belongs only to Positing Reflection, while in presupposition positedness exists only as something transcended. Whatever determinations external Reflection determines and posits in the immediate, are in so far external to it.—In the sphere of Being Reflection was the Infinite: the Finite passes for the first term, or the Real, and is supposed to be and to remain the foundation from which a beginning is made: intro-Reflection—which remains opposed to it—is the Infinite.

This External Reflection is the conclusion in which the two extremes are the Immediate and intro-Reflection; the relation of the two—the determinate immediate—is the mean, so that one part of the mean (immediacy) belongs only to the one extreme, and the other (determinateness or negation) to the other.

But if the activity of External Reflection is more closely considered, then, secondly, it is a positing of the immediate, which in so far becomes the negative or determinate; but, immediately, it is also the transcendence of this its positing; for it pre-supposes the immediate, and in negation it is the negation of this its negation. But thereby it immediately is also positing, or transcendence of its negative Immediate, and this latter, which seemed alien to it when it was the beginning whence a start was made, exists only in this its beginning. In this manner the immediate is not only in itself the same as Reflection (which would mean for us, or in External Reflection), but it is posited that it is the same. For by Reflection it is determined as being its negative or its Other; but this determining is negated by Reflection in itself and none other.—Hereby the externality of Reflection, as against the immediate, is transcended; its self-negating positing is the coincidence of itself with its negative (the immediate), and this coincidence is essential immediacy itself. We thus discover that External Reflection is not external but also immanent Reflection of immediacy itself, or that that which exists by virtue of Positing Reflection is Essence which is in and for itself. It is thus Determining Reflection.

Commonly Reflection is taken in the subjective meaning, of the movement of judgment which passes beyond a given immediate presentation, seeking universal determinations for it or comparing them with it. Kant opposes Reflecting Judgment to Determining Judgment (Critique of Judgment, Introduction, p. xxiii. sq.). Judgment in general he defines as the capacity of thinking the particular as contained in the universal. Given the universal (the Rule, Principle, or Law), then Judgment, which subsumes the particular under it, is determinative. But where only the particular is given and the relative universal is to be found, then Judgment is merely reflective. Here too then Reflection is the over-passing beyond an immediate to the universal. The immediate is determined as particular in part only by this its relation to its universal: for itself it is only an isolated unit or an immediate existent. And in part that to which it is related (its universal, its Rule, Principle, or Law) is that which is intro-reflected and self-relating,—Essence or the Essential.

Here, however, neither the reflection of consciousness nor the more determinate reflection of understanding, which has the particular and the universal for its determinations, is in question, but only Reflection in general. That reflection to which Kant ascribes the search for the universal appropriate to any given particular is clearly just External Reflection which is related to the immediate as to something given.—But it also contains the concept of absolute Reflection; for the universal, the principle or rule and law, to which it proceeds in the course of its determining, is counted as the Essence of that immediate from which a beginning is made; the latter is counted as null, and only the return thence (the determining of Reflection) as the positing of the immediate according to its veritable being; and so the operation in it of Reflection, and the determinations thence derived, are counted, not as external to this immediate, but as its proper being.

For some time it was fashionable in modern philosophy to tax Reflection in general with every possible evil, and to regard it and its determining as the antithesis and the arch-enemy of absolute contemplation: here too External Reflection was meant. In fact thinking Reflection too, in so far as its attitude is external, simply starts from an immediate which is given and is alien to it: it considers itself as a merely formal activity, which receives its content and matter from without and for itself is only the movement conditioned by these.—Further (as will soon be seen in more detail in Determining Reflection) the reflected determinations are of a kind different from the merely immediate determinations of Being. Of the latter it is easily admitted that they are transitory and merely relative, related to something other, while the reflected determinations have the form of Being-in-and-for-Self; they accordingly assert themselves as essential, and instead of passing over into their opposites, they appear rather as absolute, free, and indifferent to one another. They therefore stubbornly resist their movement: their Being is their self-identity in their determinateness, according to which, while presupposing one another, they yet preserve themselves as absolutely separate in this relation.

Determining Reflection in general is the unity of Positing Reflection and External Reflection. This must be more closely considered.—

1. External Reflection begins from immediate Being, Positing Reflection from Nothing. External Reflection, which becomes determinative, posits an Other—Essence—in the place of transcended Being; Positing does not posit its determination in the place of an Other; it has no presupposition. But this does not suffice to make it into complete Determining Reflection, and accordingly the determination which it posits is only something posited: it is immediate, not because it is self-identical but because it is self-negating; it has an absolute relation to the return to self; it is only in intro-Reflection, and is not this Reflection itself.

That which is posited is therefore an Other, but in such a manner that the self-identity of Reflection is absolutely preserved; for that which is posited exists only as transcended, as a relation to the return to self.—In the sphere of Being, Determinate Being was that kind of Being which contained negation, while Being was the immediate bottom and element of this negation, which therefore was itself immediate. In the sphere of Essence, Positedness corresponds to Determinate Being. It too is a Determinate Being, but its bottom is Being as Essence or as pure negativity; it is a determinateness or negation, not as existent, but immediately as transcended. Determinate Being is only Positedness: this is the proposition which Essence makes of Determinate Being. Positedness is opposed first to Determinate Being, and secondly to Essence, and is to be considered as the mean which joins Determinate Being to Essence and conversely Essence to Determinate Being.—If it is said that a determination is only a Positedness, this can accordingly have a double meaning: a determination is this in opposition to Determinate Being or alternatively to Essence. In the former meaning Determinate Being is taken as something higher than Positedness, and the latter is ascribed to External Reflection, or to the subjective element. But in fact Positedness is the higher; for as Positedness Determinate Being, as that which it is in itself, as a Negative, is simply just something which is related to the return to self. For this reason Positedness is only a positedness with respect to Essence, as the negation of the state of having returned to self.

2. Positedness is not yet Determination of Reflection: it is determinateness only as negation in general. But now Positing is in unity with External Reflection; in this unity the latter is absolute presupposing, that is, the self-repulsion of Reflection, or the positing of determinateness as itself. As such, therefore, Positedness is negation; but, since Positedness is presupposed, negation is intro-reflected. And thus Positedness is Determination of Reflection.

Determination of Reflection is different from the determinateness of Being, which is Quality; the latter is immediate relation to other in general; and though Positedness too is relation to other, it is relation to intro-reflectedness. Negation as Quality is negation as existent: Being constitutes its ground and element. But Determination of Reflection has for foundation intro-reflectedness. Positedness crystallizes into determination just because Reflection in its negatedness is self-identity; and therefore its negatedness is intro-Reflection. Determination here does not subsist by virtue of Being but of self-identity. Being (which is the support of Quality) is that which is not equal to negation, and for this reason Quality is unequal in itself, and is therefore a transitory moment which vanishes in an Other. Determination of Reflection, on the other hand, is Positedness as negation, negation which has negatedness for foundation and thus is not unequal in itself: it is accordingly essential and not transitory determinateness. It is the self identity of Reflection, which contains the negative only as negative (or as something transcended or posited), that gives to it persistence.

By virtue of this intro-Reflection the Determinations of Reflection appear as free Essentialities, floating in the void without mutual attraction or repulsion. In them determinateness has confirmed and fixed itself as infinite through self-relation. It is the determinate entity which has subjected to itself its transition and mere positedness, and has converted its Reflection into other into intro-Reflection. By virtue of this these determinations constitute determinate Show as it is found in Essence, or Essential Show. For this reason Determining Reflection is Reflection which has passed outside itself; the self-identity of Essence is lost in negation, which now prevails.

In Determination of Reflection there are then two sides, which at the outset are distinguished. First it is Positedness, negation as such: secondly it is intro-Reflection. As Positedness, it is negation as negation, which thus already is its unity with itself. But so far it is this only in itself”, in other words, it is the immediate as transcending itself in it, or as its own Other.—In so far Reflection is determining which remains within itself. Here Essence does not pass outside itself: the distinctions are simply posited and drawn back into Essence. But, from the other side, they are not posited, but intro-reflected; negation as negation is self-identical, and is not reflected into its Other, its Not-being.

3. Determination of Reflection is, then, reflected relation in itself, and it is also Positedness; from this immediately its nature may be more clearly understood. For as Positedness it is negation as such; it is a Not-being opposed to another entity, namely, absolute intro-Reflection, or Essence. But as self-relation it is intro-reflected.—There is a difference between these two states—its Reflection and its Positedness; the latter is more truly its transcendedness, but its intro-reflectedness is its subsistence. In so far then as it is Positedness which also is intro-Reflection, the reflection-determinateness is the relation to its other-being in itself.—It is not a determinateness which is, and rests, and is related to an Other in such a manner that the related term and its relation are different one from the other, the former being a Being-in-Self, a Something which excludes its Other and its relation to this Other from itself. On the contrary, the Reflection-Determination is in itself the determinate side and the relation of this determinate side as determinate, that is, relation to its negation.—Quality passes over into other through its relation: in its relation its change begins. Determination of Reflection on the other hand has re-absorbed its other-being. It is Positedness, or negation, which negation, however, bends back into itself relation to other,—negation which is self-identical, the unity of itself and of its Other, so that for this reason (and this reason only) it is Essentiality. Thus it is Positedness—negation—but, as intro-Reflection, it is also the accomplished transcendence of this Positedness, or infinite self-relation.