III.2.3. Teleology

When adequacy to an End is perceived, an understanding is assumed as its origin: that is, the proper and free existence of the Notion is demanded for the End. Teleology is chiefly contrasted with Mechanism, where the determinateness posited in the Object, being external, is essentially of such a kind as manifests no self-determination. The opposition between causae efficientes and causae finales—between merely efficient and final causes—refers to this distinction; and to this, taken in a concrete form, the investigation reverts whether the absolute essence of the world must be taken as a blind natural Mechanism or as an understanding which determines itself by Ends. The antinomy between fatalism or determinism and freedom also regards the opposition between Mechanism and Teleology; for the Free is the Notion in its existence.

Older metaphysics have treated these Notions as they have treated the rest; partly they have presupposed an idea of the world, and have attempted to prove that one or another Notion fits it and that the opposite is defective because it does not suffice to explain it; and partly, in doing so, they have not investigated the Notions of mechanical cause and of End in order to ascertain which has truth in and for itself. When this has been established for itself, then the objective world may offer mechanical and final causes; its existence is not the measure of truth; the truth is rather the criterion which shows which of these existences is its true existence. As subjective understanding exhibits errors in itself, so also the objective world exhibits those sides and stages of truth which for themselves are only one-sided and incomplete, and are but relations of appearance. If Mechanism and adequacy to an End stand opposed to each other, they cannot, for that very reason, be taken as indifferent to each other; nor can it be assumed that each by itself is a correct Notion having as much validity as the other, the only question being where either of them may be applied. This equal validity of the two depends upon the fact that they are and are because we have them both. But the necessary preliminary question is, since they are opposed, which of them is true; and the higher and proper question is whether a third term is not their truth after all, or whether one is not the truth of the other.—But the End-relation has turned out to be the truth of Mechanism.—That which represented itself as Chemism is comprehended together with Mechanism in so far as the End is the Notion in free existence: the unfreedom and submersion of the Notion into externality stand opposed to the End. Thus both Mechanism and Chemism are, then, comprehended under natural necessity: in the first the Notion does not exist in the Object because the latter, being mechanical, does not contain self-determination; whereas in the second the Notion either has a tense and one-sided existence or else, in so far as it emerges as the unity which holds the neutral Object in tension into extremes, it is external to itself, in so far as it cancels this separation.

The more the teleological principle was connected with the notion of an extra-mundane understanding, and, to this extent, favoured by piety, by so much it seemed to be removed from the true investigation of nature, which attempts to understand the properties of nature not as extraneous but as immanent determinatenesses, and admits only this kind of cognition as a forming of Notions. The End is the Notion itself in its Existence, so that it may seem strange that the cognition of Objects from their Notion appears as an unjustified trespass into a heterogeneous element, whereas Mechanism, in which the determinateness of an Object is a determinateness posited externally in it by an Other, is held to be a more immanent view than Teleology. Mechanism (or at least the ordinary and unfree Mechanism) and Chemism must indeed be regarded as immanent principles in so far as the determining external element is in turn an Object of the same kind, determined externally and indifferent to such determining, while in Chemism the other Object is likewise determined chemically: in short, an essential moment of the totality always lies in an external term. Consequently these principles remain within the same natural form of finitude; but, although they do not attempt to pass beyond the finite and only lead to finite causes of phenomena, which causes demand further progress, yet still they extend themselves partly into a formal totality in the Notion of force, cause, and similar reflection-determinations which are intended to denote originality; while partly they do so through the abstract universality of an all of forces, or a whole of reciprocal causes. Thus Mechanism manifests itself as a tendency of totality in that it seeks to seize Nature for itself as a whole which requires no Other for its Notion—a totality which is not found in End and the extra-mundane understanding which is associated therewith.

Adequacy to an End now manifests itself in the first place as something higher in general, as an understanding which externally determines the manifoldness of the Objects by a unity which is in and for itself, so that the indifferent determinatenesses of the Objects become, by virtue of this relation, essential. In Mechanism they become essential through the mere form of necessity, and their content remains indifferent, for they are designed to remain external: understanding alone as such is designed to be satisfied in recognizing its connexion, which is abstract identity. But in Teleology the content becomes important, for Teleology presupposes a Notion, that is, something determinate in and for itself and therefore self-determining; it has, accordingly, distinguished between the relation of the distinctions and their reciprocal determinateness, in other words form on the one side, and on the other the intro-reflected unity, something determinate in and for itself, that is, a content. But if this content is otherwise finite and insignificant, it is contrary to its design; for formally the End is a totality infinite within itself—especially if activity which operates by Ends is taken to be absolute will and understanding. Teleology has incurred the reproach of triviality so heavily because the Ends which it demonstrated are, as it befell, more significant or more trifling; the End-relation of Objects thus necessarily often appeared merely childish, because this relation appears to be so external and therefore contingent. Mechanism on the contrary allows to the determinatenesses of its Objects their value as contingent according to their content; and the Object is indifferent to these, which are supposed to have a higher validity neither for the Objects nor for subjective understanding. Consequently, in its connexion of external necessity, this principle affords the consciousness of infinite freedom as against Teleology, which sets up as something absolute whatever it contains that is trivial or even contemptible; and here a more universal thought can only feel infinitely cramped or even nauseated.

The formal disadvantage to which this Teleology is subject is this, that it does not progress beyond external adequacy to an End. Accordingly the Notion is posited as something formal, and thus the content, for Teleology, is something given externally to the Notion in the multiplicity of the objective world—given in precisely that collection of determinatenesses which is also content of Mechanism, but there is external and contingent. By reason of this community the form of adequacy to an End constitutes by itself alone the essential part of Teleology. In this respect, and without regard to the distinction between outer and inner adequacy to an End, the End-relation has proved to be, generally and in and for itself, the truth of Mechanism.—Teleology has in general the higher principle, the Notion in its existence which is in and for itself the infinite and absolute—a principle of freedom which, utterly certain of its self-determination, is absolutely removed from the external determination of Mechanism.

One of Kant’s great merits in philosophy is, that he established a distinction between relative or external, and internal, adequacy to an End. In the latter he has opened up the Notion of Life, or the Idea, and has thereby positively raised philosophy above the determinations of reflection and the relative world of metaphysics; though in the Critique of Reason this is done only negatively incompletely, and in a very crooked fashion.—It was mentioned that the opposition between Teleology and Mechanism is, in the first instance, the more general opposition between freedom and necessity. Kant sets out the opposition in this form under the Antinomies of Reason, as the “Third Conflict of Transcendental Ideas.”—I briefly quote his exposition, which was referred to before; its essential part is so simple that it requires no lengthy analysis, and the general manner of Kant’s Antinomies has been examined elsewhere in greater detail.

The thesis of the Antinomy here to be considered runs as follows:—Causality according to natural laws is not the only one from which all the phenomena of the world may be derived; it is necessary to assume another causality through freedom in order to explain them.

The antithesis is:—There is no freedom, but everything in the world happens solely according to natural laws.

The proof, as with the other Antinomies, proceeds (1) apagogically, the opposite of either thesis being assumed; (2) in order to demonstrate the contradictoriness of this assumption, its opposite conversely is assumed (that is, the proposition which is to be proved), and is presupposed as valid. Thus the whole circumlocution in the proof might be spared, since it consists merely in the assertion of the two opposed propositions.

For, in order to prove the thesis, the assumption is first to be made that there is no causality except according to natural laws, that is, according to the necessity of Mechanism in general, which includes Chemism. It is said that this proposition is self-contradictory because natural law consists just in this, that nothing happens without a cause sufficiently determined a priori which cause thus contains an absolute spontaneity;—that is, the assumption which is opposed to the thesis is contradictory because it contradicts the thesis.

In order to prove the antithesis it has to be posited that there is a freedom as a particular kind of causality—a freedom to initiate a state and hence also a series of consequences of the state. But since such an initiation presupposes a state (namely that of freedom) which has no causal connexion with the preceding state of freedom, therefore the initiation contradicts the law of causality, according to which alone unity of experience, or indeed any experience, is possible;—that is, the assumption of freedom, which is the opposite of the antithesis, cannot be made because it contradicts the antithesis.

Essentially the same Antinomy returns in the Critique of the Teleological Faculty of Judgment, as the contradiction that all production of material things takes place according to merely mechanical laws and that some production of them according to such laws is impossible.—Kant’s solution of this Antinomy is the same as the general solution of the others: that reason can prove neither of these propositions, since we can have no determinant principle a priori about the possibility of things according to merely empirical laws of nature; consequently the two must not be regarded as objective propositions but as subjective maxims: on the one hand I ought always to reflect upon all natural events according to the principle of pure natural mechanism; but this does not prevent me from investigating certain forms of nature, should the occasion be given, according to another maxim, namely, that of final causes;—as though these two maxims (which further are supposed to be required only by human reason) were not in the same opposition in which the propositions stand.—As was observed above, at this whole standpoint the only question which is demanded by philosophic interest is not looked into, namely, which of these two principles is true in and for itself; but, for this point of view, it is irrelevant whether the principles are to be considered as objective determinations of nature (that is here, as determinations existing externally) or as mere maxims of a subjective cognition.—But in fact this is a subjective, that is, a contingent, cognition, which applies one or the other maxim as the occasion may suggest according as it thinks it appropriate to the given objects, but otherwise does not concern itself about the truth of these determinations themselves, or ask whether both are determinations of the objects or of cognition.

But however inadequate Kant’s discussion of the teleological principle may be in regard to the essential point of view, still the position which Kant assigns to it is remarkable. He ascribes it to a reflecting faculty of judgment, and thus makes it the connecting middle link between the universal of reason and the individual of intuition;—further, he distinguishes between this reflecting faculty of judgment and the determining faculty, which latter according to him merely subsumes the particular under the universal. Such a merely subsuming universal is an abstract which becomes concrete only in an Other, the particular. The End on the other hand is the concrete universal which contains in itself the moment of particularity and externality, and consequently is active and is the impulse to repel itself from itself. It is true that the Notion as End is an objective judgment, in which one determination, the subject (that is, the concrete Notion), is self-determined, while the other is not only a predicate but also is external objectivity. But the End-relation is not for this reason a reflecting process of judgment which considers external objects only according to a unity, as though some understanding had given them for the benefit of our powers of cognition: the relation is the truth which is in and for itself, which judges objectively and absolutely determines external objectivity. Thus the End-relation is more than Judgment; it is the Syllogism of the independent and free Notion, which through objectivity binds itself together with itself.

The End has turned out to be the complementary third term of Mechanism and Chemism; it is their truth. Since it still stands within the sphere of Objectivity or of the immediacy of the total Notion, it is still affected by externality as such; an objective world to which it relates itself still stands opposed to it. From this side mechanical causality (in which generally Chemism must be included) still appears in this End-relation (which is external), but as subordinated to it and as transcended in and for itself. With regard to the closer relation, the mechanical Object is in the relation of immediate totality to its determinedness, so that it is indifferent to it whether it determines or not. This external determinedness is now developed into self-determination, and thus the Notion, which in the Object is merely internal (or, what is the same thing, merely external), is now posited; at first the End is just this Notion itself which is external to the Mechanical Notion. Thus the End is the self-determining entity for Chemism too; that entity which brings back into the unity of the Notion that external determinedness by which it is conditioned.—From this results the nature of the subordination of the two previous forms of the objective process: the Other, which in them lies in the infinite progress, is the Notion which at first is posited as external to them, which is End; not only is the Notion their substance, but also externality is the moment which is essential to them and constitutes their determinateness. Thus mechanical or chemical technique spontaneously offers itself to the End-relation by reason of its character of being determined externally; and this relation must now be further considered.

In the centrality of the objective sphere, which is an indifference as against determinateness, the subjective Notion has now again discovered and posited the negative point of unity; in Chemism it has posited the objectivity of the Notion-determinations, by means of which alone it is posited as concrete objective Notion. Its determinateness or its simple distinction now contains the determinateness of externality, and therefore its simple unity is the self-repelling and in this process self-preserving unity. Consequently the End is the subjective Notion as essential tendency and impulse towards external self-positing. In this process it is saved from transition. It is neither a force which manifests itself, nor a substance and cause which exhibits itself in accidents and effects. Force is only an abstractly internal entity in so far as it has not manifested itself; or, it has Determinate Being only in the manifestation which it must be solicited to produce; and so with cause and substance: because they have actuality only in accidents and in effect, their activity is a transition against which they cannot preserve themselves in freedom. The End may, indeed, be determined as force and cause, but these expressions fulfil only an incomplete side of its significance; if they are to be predicated of it in its truth, they can be predicated only in a manner which transcends their Notion—as a force which solicits itself to manifest itself, or as a cause which is its own cause, or whose effect immediately is the cause.

If that which is adequate to an End is ascribed to an understanding, then, as was previously observed, regard is being had to the determinate aspect of the content. But the content must be taken in general as the reasonable in its existence. It manifests reasonableness because it is the concrete Notion which preserves the objective distinction in its absolute unity. Consequently it is essentially the Syllogism in itself. It is the universal which is equal to itself, and, as containing self-repellent negativity, it is here universal, in so far as it is still indeterminate, activity. But, since this is negative self-relation, the activity immediately determines itself and gives itself the moment of particularity and this, since it is likewise the intro-reflected, totality of form, is content as against the posited distinctions of form. Equally immediately this negativity, by virtue of its self-relation, is absolute intro-Reflection of form, and individuality. This Reflection is (1) inner universality of the subject, and (2) Reflection outwards; and, to this extent, the End is still subjective, and its activity is directed against external objectivity.

For the End is the Notion which has reached itself in Objectivity; the determinateness which it has assumed in Objectivity is that of objective indifference to and externality of determinedness; consequently its self-repelling negativity is such as has moments which, being only determinations of the Notion itself, have also the form of objective indifference to each other.—Already in the formal Judgment subject and predicate are determined as independent as against each other; but as yet their independence is only abstract universality. Now it has reached the determination of Objectivity; but, as moment of the Notion, this complete variousness is enclosed in the simple unity of the Notion. Now the End is this total intro-Reflection of Objectivity, and is so immediately; and, in so far as it is this, first, self-determination or particularity as simple intro-Reflection is distinct from the concrete form and is a determinate content. Accordingly the End is finite, although formally it is infinite subjectivity. Secondly, its determinateness has the form of objective indifference, and therefore has the shape of a presupposition; in this direction its finitude consists in this, that it has before it an objective, Mechanical and Chemical world, to which its activity relates itself as to something already given; thus its self-determining activity is in its identity immediately external to itself, and as much as it is intro-Reflection it is Reflection outwards. And to this extent it still has a truly extra-mundane existence, namely, in so far as this objectivity stands opposed to it; while the latter on the other hand stands opposed to it as a Mechanical and Chemical whole, not yet determined and penetrated by the End.

Consequently the movement of the End may now be expressed in this manner, that it proceeds to cancel the presupposition of the End—that is, the immediacy of the Object—and to posit the Object as determined through the Notion. This negative attitude to the Object is equally a negative attitude to itself, a cancellation of the subjectivity of the End. Positively, this is the realization of the End, the union of objective being with it, so that this being, which as moment of the End is immediately the determinateness identical with it, is to exist as external determinateness; while conversely the Objective is to be posited as presupposition rather than as determined by Notion.—The End is in itself the impulse towards its realization; the determinateness of the Notion-moments is externality; but their simplicity, in the unity of the Notion, is inadequate to that which this unity is; and consequently the Notion repels itself from itself. This repulsion is, in general, the resolution of the self-relation of negative unity, by means of which the latter is exclusive individuality; but through this exclusion it resolves itself, or unfolds, because this is self-determination, or self-positing. On the one hand, while subjectivity determines itself, it makes itself particularity and gives itself a content which, enclosed in the unity of the Notion, is as yet internal; but this positing or simple intro-Reflection is also, immediately (as has appeared), a presupposing; and in the same moment in which the subject of the End determines itself, it is related to an indifferent and external objectivity which it is to equate with that inner determinateness, that is, to posit as something determined by the Notion: this, at first, is Means.

The first immediate positing in the End is also the positing of something internal, that is, something determined as posited, and also the presupposing of an objective world which is indifferent to the End-determination. But the subjectivity of the End is absolute negative unity: its second determining is therefore the transcendence of this presupposition in general; this transcendence is the return to self in so far as through it that moment of first negation, the positing of the negative as against the subject (or, the external object), is transcended. But, as against presupposition or the immediacy of determining, or against the objective world, it is only the first (and consequently immediate and external) negation. Hence this positing is not yet the Realized End itself, but only a beginning in that direction. The object thus determined is only the Means.

The End binds itself together with objectivity through a Means, and in objectivity with itself. The Means is the middle of the Syllogism. The End requires a Mean for its realization because it is finite,—a Means, that is, a Mean, which at the same time has the shape of an external Determinate Being, indifferent to the End itself and to its realization. The absolute Notion contains mediation in such a way that its own first positing is not a presupposing, in whose object indifferent externality would be the fundamental determination: rather, the world as creature has only the form of such externality, but its negativity, and positedness, constitute its fundamental determination.—The finitude of the End thus consists in this, that its process of determining is altogether external to itself, so that its first determining (as we saw) falls apart into a positing and a presupposing; consequently the negation of this determining is also intro-Reflection in one direction only; in the other it is only first negation. Or again, intro-Reflection is itself self-external and is Reflection outwards.

The Means is therefore the formal middle of a formal syllogism; it is external as against the extreme of the Subjective End, and consequently also against the extreme of the Objective End: similarly particularity in the formal syllogism is an indifferent medius terminus whose place might be taken by any other. Further, particularity is middle only because it is determinateness in relation to one extreme and universal in relation to the other, so that its mediating determination belongs to it only relatively and through others; and similarly the Means is mediating mean only (1) because it is an immediate object, and (2) because it is Means by virtue of the relation (which is external to it) to the extreme of the End—which relation is for it a form to which it is indifferent.

Consequently Notion and Objectivity are connected only externally in the Means, which in so far is a merely mechanical object. The relation of the object to the End is a premiss; or it is an immediate relation which with regard to the End (as was shown) is intro-Reflection. The Means is an inhering predicate; its objectivity is subsumed under the End-determination, which, because of its concretion, is universality. Because of this End-determination which exists in the Means, it now also subsumes the other extreme of the objectivity which up to this point was indeterminate.—Conversely the Means, as immediate objectivity, has universality of Determinate Being as against the Subjective End. The subjective individuality of the End still lacks this.—Thus at first the End is merely external determinateness in the Means, and so is outside it, as negative unity; while the Means is only mechanical object having the End merely as a determinateness and not as simple concretion of the totality. But the middle, by virtue of its connecting function, must itself be the totality of the End. It has appeared that the End-determination in the Means is at the same time intro-Reflection; in so far it is formal self-reference, since determinateness, as real indifference, is posited as the objectivity of the Means. But for this very reason this subjectivity—which from one side is pure subjectivity—is also activity.—In the Subjective End negative self-relation remains identical with determinateness as such—with content and externality. But in the objectivation of the End which is commencing—in the becoming-other of the simple Notion—these moments separate; or, conversely, this becoming-other or externality itself consists in this.

Thus this whole middle is itself the totality of the syllogism, in which abstract activity and the external Means constitute the extremes, whose middle is constituted by the determinateness of the object through the End by virtue of which it is Means.—But further, universality is the relation of the End-activity and the Means. The Means is object, and is in itself the totality of the Notion; it has no force of resistance to the End such as it has against some other immediate object. Thus it is entirely penetrable by the End (which is the posited Notion), and is susceptible of this communication because, in itself, it is identical with the End. But now it is also posited as that which is penetrable by the Notion, for in centrality it is something which strives after negative unity; similarly, in Chemism, it has, as neutral, and also as different, become dependent.—Its dependence consists just in this, that it is only in itself the totality of the Notion; but the Notion is Being-for-Self. Thus as against the End the object has the character of impotence and subservience; the End is its subjectivity or soul, which has its external side in the object.

The object, being in this manner immediately subjected to the End, is not an extreme of the syllogism; but this relation constitutes one of its premisses. But the Means also has a side according to which it still has independence as against the End. The objectivity which is connected with the End in the Means is still external to it, because it is only immediately so connected; and consequently the presupposition still persists. The activity of the End through the Means is still therefore directed against this presupposition, and the End is activity and not merely impulse and tendency, just in so far as the moment of objectivity in the Means is posited in its determinateness as external and the simple unity of the Notion now has objectivity as such in itself.

1. The End in its relation to the Means is already intro-reflected; but its objective return upon itself has not yet been posited. The activity of the End through its Means is still directed against objectivity as original presupposition, which is precisely this, to be indifferent to determinateness. In so far as the activity should again consist just in determining the immediate objectivity, the product would again be only a Means, and so on to infinity: only a Means adequate to the End would result, but not the objectivity of the End itself. Consequently the End which is active in its Means must not determine the immediate object as something external, which therefore must collapse through itself into the unity of the Notion; in other words, this external activity of the End through its Means must determine itself as mediation and must transcend itself.

The relation of the activity of the End to the external object through the Means is at this point the second premiss of the syllogism—an immediate relation of the middle to the other extreme. The relation is immediate because the middle has in it an external object, and the other extreme is such an external object. The Means is effective and powerful against the latter because its object is connected with the self-determining activity, while the immediate determinateness which it has is indifferent to this object. In this relation its process is no other than the mechanical or chemical process; in this objective externality the former relations emerge, but under the supremacy of the End.—But, as has been seen, these processes pass back, through themselves, into the End. If then at first the relation of the Means to the external object which is to be operated upon is immediate, it has earlier already presented itself as a syllogism, the End having turned out to be its true middle and unity. If then the Means is the object which stands on the side of the End and contains its activity, then the mechanism which here operates is also self-return of objectivity into the Notion, which, however, is already presupposed as End; in so far the negative attitude to the object of the activity which is adequate to the End is not external, but is the change and the transition of objectivity in itself into the End.

It may be considered as force that the End immediately relates itself to an object and makes it a Means, and that through this Means it determines another; for the End seems to be quite heterogeneous from the object, and the two objects are also mutually independent totalities. But it may be regarded as the cunning of Reason when the End puts itself into mediate relation with the object and inserts another object between itself and it. As has been observed, the finitude of rationality has this side, that the End is related to the presupposition, that is, the externality of the object. In immediate relation to the object the End would itself enter into Mechanism or Chemism, and thus would be subject to contingency and to the destruction of its determination as Notion which is in and for itself. But as it is it exposes an object as Means, allows it to exhaust itself externally in its place, and, surrendering it to attrition, shields itself behind it from mechanical force.

Further, since the End is finite it has a finite content; accordingly it is not absolute or utterly and in and for itself reasonable. The Means however is the external middle of the syllogism which is the realization of the End; in it therefore reasonableness manifests itself as such—as preserving itself in this external Other and precisely through this externality. In so far the Means is higher than the finite Ends of external usefulness: the plough is more honourable than are immediately those enjoyments which are procured by it, and are Ends. The instrument is preserved, while the immediate enjoyments pass away and are forgotten. In his tools man possesses power over external nature, even although, according to his Ends, he frequently is subjected to it.

But the End does not only remain outside the Mechanical process: it also preserves itself within it, and is its determination. The End, as the Notion which exists as free against the object and its process and is self-determining activity, equally is the truth which is in and for itself of Mechanism; and therefore in it the End coincides only with itself. The power of the End over the object is this identity which is for itself, and the activity of the End is the manifestation of this identity. The End as content is determinateness which is in and for itself, and which in the object is indifferent and external; but its activity is on one side the truth of the process, and as negative unity it is the transcendence of the show of externality. From the point of view of abstraction it is the indifferent determinateness of the object which equally externally is replaced by another determinateness; but the simple abstraction of determinateness in its truth is the totality of the negative—the concrete Notion which posits externality within itself.

The content of the End is its negativity as simple intro-reflected particularity, distinct from its totality as form. Because of this simplicity, whose determinateness in and for itself is the totality of the Notion, the content appears as that which remains identical in the realization of the End. The teleological process is the translation into objectivity of the Notion which exists distinctly as Notion; it appears that this translation into a presupposed Other is the coincidence of the Notion with and through itself. Now the content of the End is this identity which exists in the form of the identical. The Notion preserves itself in every process of transition; for example, when the cause becomes effect it is the cause which in the effect coincides with itself: while in the teleological transition it is the Notion which as such already exists as cause, as the absolute and concrete unity which is free as against objectivity and its external determinability. The externality into which the End translates itself is, as we saw, itself already posited as moment of the Notion, as form of its internal distinction. Consequently the End has its peculiar moment in externality; and the content, as content of the concrete unity, is its simple form, which, in the distinct moments of the End—as Subjective End, as Means and mediated activity, and as Objective End—not only remains implicitly self-equal, but also exists as that which remains self-equal.

It may then be said of the teleological activity that in it the end is the beginning, the consequence the ground, and the effect the cause; that it is a becoming of that which has become, that in it only that which already exists comes into existence, and so forth: that is, that altogether all relation-determinations which belong to the sphere of Reflection or of immediate Being have lost their distinctions; and that which is designated as Other (like end, consequence, effect, and so on) no longer has the determination of Other in the End-relation, but rather is posited as identical with the simple Notion.

2. If now the product of the teleological activity is more closely considered, the End belongs to it only externally in so far as it is absolute presupposition as against the Subjective End; that is, in so far as a halt is made at the point where the activity which is adequate to an End is related through its Means only mechanically to the object, and posits, instead of one indifferent determinateness of it, some other determinateness which is equally external. Such a determinateness which an object has through the End differs generally from a merely mechanical determinateness in that the former object is moment of a unity; whence, even if it (that is, the determinateness) is external to the object, yet in itself it is not merely something external. The object which shows such a unity is a whole, and its parts—its own externality—are indifferent to this; it is a determinate, concrete unity, which unites within itself various relations and determinatenesses. This unity, of which no notion can be formed from the specific nature of the object, and which according to its determinate content is other than the peculiar content of the object, is, for itself, no mechanical determinateness; but it is still mechanical in the object. In this product of the activity which is adequate to an End the content of the End and the content of the object are external to each other, and in the other moments of the syllogism the determinations of this activity are similarly related:—these are, in the comprehensive middle, the activity which is adequate to the End, and the object which is Means; and in the Subjective End (the other extreme), infinite form as the totality of the Notion, and its content. According to the relation by which the Subjective End is bound together with objectivity, both premisses alike—the relation of the object which is determined as Means to the object which still is external, and also the relation of the Subjective End to the object which is made Means—are immediate relations. Consequently the syllogism has the common fault of the formal Syllogism, namely, that the relations of which it consists are not themselves conclusions or mediations, and that in fact they presuppose the conclusion, to produce which they are to serve as Means.

If we consider the one premiss—the immediate relation of the Subjective End to the object which thus becomes Means, then the relation of the End to the Means cannot be immediate; for this object is as much immediate as is the object of the other extreme, in which the End is to be realized through mediation. In so far therefore as they are posited as distinct, a Means of their relation must be inserted between this objectivity and the Subjective End; but this Means equally is an object already determined by the End, between whose objectivity and teleological determination a new Means must be inserted, and so on to infinity. This is the positing of the infinite progress of mediation.—The same also takes place with regard to the other premiss, the relation of the Means to the as yet undetermined object. These are utterly independent, and therefore they can be united only in a third term, and so on to infinity.—Or, conversely, the premisses already presuppose the conclusion, and therefore the latter must needs be incomplete in the state in which it is when it is only by virtue of these merely immediate premisses. The conclusion, or the product of activity which is adequate to an End, is simply an object determined by an End external to itself: it is thus the same thing as the Means. In such a product therefore only a Means and not a Realized End has resulted; or, the End in it has not truly reached any objectivity.—It is therefore quite indifferent whether an object determined by external End is considered as Realized End or only as Means: this is a relative determination, external to the object itself, and not objective. All objects, then, in which an external End is realized are equally only Means of the End. That which is required for the realization of an End, and must essentially be taken as Means, is Means, according to its determination as something which is to be exhausted by attrition. But the object which is to contain the Realized End and to exhibit itself as its objectivity is also perishable: it too does not fulfil its End by a stable and self-preserving existence, but only in so far as it is exhausted by attrition, for only in so far does it correspond to the unity of the Notion, inasmuch as its externality, that is, its objectivity, cancels itself in this unity.—A house, a clock, may seem to be Ends as against the instruments which are used to produce them; but the stones and beams, or wheels and axles, and so on, which constitute the actuality of the End, fulfil it only through the pressure which they undergo, or through the chemical processes in combination with air, light, or water to which they are exposed, and of which they relieve man, by their friction and so forth. Thus they fulfil their determination only by their use and wear, and correspond to what they are supposed to be only by their negation. They are not positively united with the End, because self-determination is applied to them only externally, and they are only relative Ends; or, essentially, they are only Means.

Altogether these Ends, as has been shown, have a restricted content; their form is the infinite self-determination of the Notion, which, through the End, has restricted itself so as to be external individuality. The restricted content makes these Ends inadequate to the infinity of the Notion, and makes them untrue: such a determinateness is offered up to Becoming and to change already through the sphere of necessity and through Being, and is perishable.

3. Thus the result is reached that external adequacy to an End, which as yet has only the form of Teleology, really only achieves Means and not an objective End, since the Subjective End remains as an external and subjective determination. Or, in so far as the End is active and realizes itself, if only in a Means, it is still immediately connected with and immersed in objectivity: it is itself an object, and it might be said that in so far the End cannot reach the Means because it requires the realization of the End before realization through a Means can take place.

But in fact the result is not only an external End-relation, but also is its truth—inner End-relation and an objective End. The externality of the object, independent against the Notion, which the End presupposes for itself, is posited in this presupposition as an unessential show, and also is already transcended in and for itself; hence properly the activity of the End is only the exhibition and transcendence of this show.—As has appeared through the Notion, the first object becomes Means by virtue of communication, because it is totality of the Notion in itself, and because its determinateness (which is just externality itself) is posited only as external and unessential, and consequently is in the End itself as the peculiar moment of the latter, and not as independent of it. Hence the determination of the object as Means is utterly immediate. Consequently the Subjective End requires no force nor other affirmation against the object than self-affirmation, in order to make it Means; the determination of itself in resolution or solution is the merely posited externality of the object, which here exists immediately as subjected to the End, and has no other determination as against it except that of the nullity of Being-in-and-for-Self.

The second transcendence of objectivity by objectivity differs from this: here the former term (as the first) is the End in objective immediacy, while the latter consequently is the transcendence not only of a first immediacy but of both—of the objective as something merely posited, and of the immediate. In this manner negativity returns upon itself in such a way that it is equally reconstruction of objectivity, but of objectivity as identical with it, and therefore is also a positing of objectivity as only determined by the End, and external. By reason of the latter fact this product, as before, remains Means: by reason of the former, it is the objectivity which is identical with the Notion, the realized End, in which the side of being Means is the reality of the End itself. In the Realized End the Means vanishes because it would only be objectivity immediately subsumed under the End—which in the realized End is as return of the End into itself; with it, further, mediation itself vanishes, as being an attitude of an external entity, partly into the concrete identity of the objective End, and partly into the same as abstract identity and immediacy of Determinate Being.

This also contains the mediation which was demanded for the first premiss—the immediate relation of the End to the object. The Realized End is also Means, and conversely the truth of the Means is equally this, that it itself is real End; and the first transcendence of objectivity is already the second, just as the second showed itself to contain also the first. For the Notion determines itself: its determinateness is external indifference, which is immediately determined in the resolution as transcended (namely, as internal and subjective), and also as presupposed object. Its further passage out of itself, which appeared as immediate communication and subsumption under itself of the presupposed object, is also transcendence (1) of that internal determinateness of externality which is enclosed in the Notion, that is, is posited as transcended, and at the same time (2) of the presupposition of an object. Thus this apparently first transcendence of indifferent objectivity is also the second: it is an intro-Reflection which has passed through mediation, or it is the Realized End.

Here, in the sphere of Objectivity, where the Notion has its determinateness in the form of indifferent externality and is in reciprocal action with itself, it becomes doubly difficult and complicated to represent its movement, since it is itself immediately twofold, and whatever is first is also second. In the Notion for itself, that is, in its subjectivity, its distinctness from itself exists as immediate identical totality for itself; but here its determinateness is indifferent externality, and therefore its self-identity therein is also and immediately self-repulsion, since that which is determined as external and indifferent to it is in fact itself, while itself (the identity) as itself and as intro-reflected is rather its Other. The objective return upon itself of the Notion, that is, its true objectivation, is apprehended only if this fact is held fast,—when it is also apprehended that each of the individual moments through which this mediation takes its course is itself its whole syllogism. Thus the original inner externality of the Notion, by means of which it is self-repellent unity, End, and its struggle into objectivation, is the immediate positing or presupposition of an external object; self-determination is also determination of an external object which is not determined by the Notion; and conversely it is self-determination, that is, externality transcended and posited as inner.—or the certainty of the unessentiality of the external object.—It has just been shown of the second relation—the determination of the object as Means—how it is in itself the self-mediation of the End in the object.—Similarly the third term, or Mechanism which operates under the domination of the End and transcends the object by the object, is (1) transcendence of the Means or of the object which is already posited as transcended, and hence also second transcendence and intro-Reflection; and (2) a first determining of the external object. The latter, as has been observed, is again in the Realized End no more than the production of a Means; the subjectivity of the finite Notion contemptuously casts aside the Means—and, reaching its goal, has reached nothing better than this. But the reflection that the End is reached in the Means and that in the fulfilled End the Means and mediation are preserved, is the last result of the external End-relation,—a result which, after transcending itself, this relation has exhibited as its truth.—The third syllogism which has just been considered differs in this respect, that it is, first, the subjective End-activity of the preceding syllogisms, but is also the transcendence of external objectivity and is therefore externality in general through itself, and, consequently, the totality in its positedness.

We have now watched the Subjectivity or Being-for-Self of the Notion pass over into its Being-in-Self or Objectivity; and in the latter the negativity of its Being-for-Self has once more come into view. In it the Notion has determined itself in such a manner that its particularity is external Objectivity, or is as the simple concrete unity whose externality is its self-determination. The movement of the End has now achieved that the moment of externality is posited not only in the Notion, and the Notion is not only Ought and tendency, but, as concrete totality, is identical with immediate Objectivity. On the one hand this identity is the simple Notion and equally immediate Objectivity; but on the other it is, likewise essentially, mediation, and is that simple immediacy only through the latter as self-transcending mediation. Thus the Notion is essentially this, that it is distinct from its Objectivity, which is in itself, as identity which is for itself; thence it has externality, but, in this external totality, it is the self-determining identity thereof. Thus now the Notion is the Idea.