this feature is itself, in point of fact, as appears from the foregoing, merely a moment in the expression of force. The true nature of force thus remains merely the thought or idea of force; the moments in its reali- sation, its substantial independence and its process, rush, without let or hindrance, together into one single undivided unity, a unity which is not force withdrawn into itself (for this is merely one of those moments), but is its notion qua notion. The realisation of force is, then, at the same time dissipation or loss of reality; 136 Phenomenology of Mind it has thereby become something quite different, viz. this universahty, which understanding knows from the start or immediately to be its essential nature, and which shows itself, too, to be the essence of it in what is supposed to be its reaHty, in the actual substances.
So far as we look on the first universal as the notion of understanding, where force does not yet exist for itself, the second is now its essential reahty, as it is revealed in and for itself. Or, conversely, if we look on the first universal as the immediate, which should be an actual object for consciousness, then this second has the characteristic of being the negative of sensu- ously objective force: it is force, in the form in which, in its true being, force exists merely as object for understanding. The first Vt^ould be force withdrawn into itself, i.e. force as substance; the second, however, is the inner being of things qua imier, which is one and the same with the notion qua notion.
This true being of things has here the characteristic that it does not exist immediately for consciousness; rather, consciousness takes up a mediated relation to the inner; in the form of understanding it looks through the intervening play of forces into the real and true backgromid of things. The middle term combining the two extremes, understanding and the inner of things, is the explicitly evolved being of force, which is now and henceforth a vanishing process for understanding itself. Hence it is called Appearance (Erscheinung); for being which is per se straightway non-being we call a show, a semblance (Schein). It is, however, not merely a show, but appearance, a totality of seeming {Schein). This totahty as totahty or universal is what makes up the inner world, the play of forces Understanding 137 Understanding 137 in the sense of its rejlection into itself. There conscious- ness has before itself in objective form the things of perception as they truly are, i.e. as moments turning, without halt or separate subsistence, directly into their opposite, the "one" changing immediately into the universal, the essential becoming at once something unessential, and vice versa. This play of forces is consequently the development of the negative; but its true nature is the positive element, viz. the universal, the implicit object, the object existing 'per se.
The being of this object for consciousness is mediated through the movement of appearance, by which the content of perception and the sensuous objective world as a whole, get merely negative significance. There consciousness is turned back upon itself as the truth; but, being consciousness, it again makes this truth into an inner being of the object, and distinguishes this reflection of things from its own reflection into self: just as the mediating process likewise is for it still an objective process. This inner natm:e is therefore for it an extreme placed over against it. But it is on that accotmt the truth for it, because therein, as in something essentially real, it possesses at the same time the certainty of its own self, the moment of its own self-existence. But it is not yet con- scious of this basis [its self-existence], for the independ- ence, its being on its own account, v/hich should have the inner world within it, would be nothing else than the negative process. This negative process, however, is for consciousness still objective vanishing appear- ance, and not yet its own proper self-existence (Filr- sichseyn). Hence the inner is no doubt taken to be 138 Phenomenology of Mind notion, but consciousness does not yet know the nature of the notion.
Within this inner truth, this absolute universal which has got rid of the opposition between imiversal and particular, and become the object of understanding, is a supersensible world which henceforth opens up as the true world, lying beyond the sensuous world which is the world of appearance. Away remote from the changing vanishing present (Diesseits) hes the permanent beyond (Jenseits): an immanent inherent reahty {ein Ansich), which is the first and therefore imperfect manifestation of Reason, i.e. it is merely the pure element where the truth finds its abode and its essential being.
Our object henceforward has thus the form of a syllogistic inference (Schluss), whose extremes are the inner being of things and understanding, and its middle term the sphere of appearance. The course of this inferential process, however, furnishes the further characterisation of what imderstanding detects in the inner world by the aid of the middle term; and gives rise to the experience understanding goes through regarding this relation of the combined and mutually inferrible terms.
The inner world is so far for consciousness a bare and simple beyond, because consciousness does not as yet find itself in it. It is empty, for it is merely the nothing- ness of appearance, and positively the naked universal. This type of inwardness suits those who say that the inner being of things cannot be known;* but the reason for the position would have to be taken in some other sense. Certainly there is no laiowledge to be had of this * Cp. Goethe, " /m innern der Natur," etc.
Understanding 139 inner world, as we have it here; not, however, owing to reason being too short-sighted, or limited, or what- ever you care to call it (on this point there is as yet nothing known at this stage; we have not gone deep enough for that yet), but on account simply of the nature of the case, because in the void there is nothing known, or, putting it from the point of view of the other side, because its very characteristic lies in being beyond con- sciousness.
The result is, of course, the same if you place a bhnd man amid the wealth of the supersensible world (if it has a wealth, whether this be a content peculiarly its own, or whether consciousness itself be this content), and if you place one with sight in absolute darkness, or, if you like, in pure light, supposing the supersensible world to be this. The seeing man sees in that pure light as little as in absolute darkness, and just as much as the blind man in the ample fulness which lay before him. If there were really nothing further ado with the inner sphere and with our being bound up along with it by means of the world of appearance, then there would be nothing left but to stop at the phenomenal world, i.e. take something for truth about which we know that it is not true. Or in order that there may be something in this empty void — which, while it originally came about as a state devoid of objective things, has, however, since it is emptiness pure and simple, to be taken to be also devoid of all mental relations and distinctions of consciousness qua consciousness — in order that in this complete vacuity, which is even called the holy of hohes, the inner sanctuary, there may yet be something, we should be driven to fill it up with dreamings, appearances, produced by consciousness itself. It 140 Phenomenology of Mind would have to be content with being treated so badly, for it would not deserve anything better, since even dreams are something better than its own barren emptiness.
The inner world, or the supersensible beyond, has, however, arisen: it comes to us out of the sphere of appearance, and the latter is its mediating agency: in other words, appearance is its essential nature and, in point of fact, its filhng. The supersensible is the estabhshed truth of the sensible and perceptual. The truth of the sensible and the perceptual lies, however, in being appearance. The supersensible is then appearance qua appearance. We distort the proper meanmg of this, if we take it to mean that the super- sensible is therefore the sensible world, or the world as it is for immediate sense-certainty and perception. For, on the contrary, appearance is just not the world of sense-knowledge and perception as positively being, but this world as superseded or established in truth as an inner world. It is often said that the supersensible is not appearance; but by appearance is thereby meant not appearance, but rather the sensible world taken as itself real actuality.
Understanding, which is our object here, finds itself in this position, that, for it, the inner world has come about, to begin with, only as the imphcit inherent being, universal and still without a filling. The play of forces has simply and solely this negative significance of not being something j^er se; and its only positive significance is that of being the mediating agency, but outside understanding. The relation of understanding to the inner world through mediation is, however, its own process, by which the inner world will be found to receive fullness of content.
Understanding 141 The play of forces is what understanding has directly to do with; but the real truth for it is the inner world bare and simple. The movement of force is consequently the truth only by being in like manner something simple. Regarding this play of forces, however, we saw that its pecuharity lay in this, that the force which is awakened into activity by another force is just on that account the inciting agency for this other force, which thereby itself only then becomes an inciting force. We have here in this way merely direct and immediate inter- change or complete exchange of the characteristic which constitutes the sole content of what comes before us, viz. the fact of being either universal medium or negative unity. It ceases immediately on its entrance in determinate form to be what it was on entering: it awakens or incites, by its appearance in deter- minate shape, the other side, which thereby gives itself expression, i.e. the latter is now directly what the first was to be. Each of these two sides, the relation of inciting and the relation of the opposed determinate content, is on its own account an absolute process of permutation and transposition. But these two relations are again themselves one and the same, and the formal distinction of being incited and of inciting to activity, is the same as the distinction of content, i.e. the distinc- tion between the incited factor as such, viz. the passive medium, on the one side, and the inciting factor, viz. the active medium, the negative unity, or the "one" on the other side. In this way there disappears all dis- tinction of contrasted and opposed particular forces, which were meant to be present in this process; for they rested solely on the above distinctions. And, along with both those distinctions, the distinction between 142 Phenomenology of Mind the forces collapses likewise into merely one. There is thus neither force nor inciting and being incited to action, nor the characteristic of being a stable medium and a unity reflected into self, there is neither a particular which is something on its own account, nor are there diverse opposites. What is found in this flux of thoroughgoing change is merely difference as universal difference, or difference into which the various opposites have been resolved. This difference as universal, consequently, is what constitutes the ultimate simple element in that play of forces, and is the resultant truth of that process. It is the Law of Force.* The absolute flux of the world of appearance passes into bare and simple difference through its relation to the simplicity of the inner being, the simplicity appre- hended by understanding. The inner being is in the first instance merely the implicit universal. This implicit simple universal, however, is essentially abso- lute universal dift'erence as well; for it is the outcome of the change itself, or change is its very nature. But change, when planted in the inner reality as it [change] truly is, forthwith is taken up into that reality as equally absolute universal difference at peace with itself, and remaining at one with itself. In other words, negation is an essential moment of the universal; and negation, or mediation in the universal, is universal difference. This difference is expressed in the law, which is the stable presentment or * Cp. Helmholtz, "It is precisely in the purest form of the expression of force — viz. in mechanical force which acts on a mass-point — that we find most clearly brought out that force is merely the objectified law of action." — Lectures and Addresses, v., Eng. trans.. Vol. I., p. 326.
Understanding 143 Understanding 143 picture of unstable appearance. The supersensible world is in this way a quiescent " kingdom of laws," no doubt beyond the world of perception — for this exhibits the law only through incessant change — but likewise present in it, and its direct immovable copy or image.
This kingdom of laws is indeed the truth for under- standing; and that truth finds its content in the distinction which lies in the law. At the same time, however, this kingdom of laws is only the prehminary truth, and does not give all the fullness of the world of appearance. The law is present therein, but is not all the appearance present; under ever- varying circum- stances the law has an ever-varying actual existence. Thereby appearance continues to keep one aspect which is not in the inner world; i.e. appearance is not yet in very truth established as appearance, as that whose inde- pendent being has been done away with. This defect in the law has to be brought out in the law itself. What seems defective in it is that while it no doubt has difference within it, it contains this in a merely universal indeterminate way. So far, however, as it is not law in general, but a law, it has determinate- ness within it; and as a result there are found an indeterminate plurahty of laws. But this pluiahty is rather itself a defect; it contradicts the principle of understanding, for which, since it is consciousness of the simple inner being, truth is the inherently universal unity. It must, therefore, let the many laws coalesce into a single law, just as, e.g., the law by which a stone falls, and that by which the heavenly bodies move have been conceived as one law. When the laws thus coincide, however, they lose their specific character.
144 Phenomenology of Mind The law becomes more and more abstract and super- ficial, and in consequence we find as a fact, not the unity of these various determinate laws, but a law which leaves out their specific character; just as the one law, which combines in itself the laws of falhng terrestrial bodies, and of the movements of celestial bodies, does not, in point of fact, express both kinds of laws. The unification of all laws in universal attraction expresses no fiu'ther content than just the bare concept of the law itself, a concept which is therein set doAvn as exist- ing. Universal attraction says merely that everything has a constant distinction for anything else. Under- standing pretends by that to have found a universal law which gives expression to universal reality as such; but, in point of fact, it has merely found the conception of law itself, although in such a way that it at the same time thereby declares all reality to be in its very nature conformed to law. The idea of universal attraction has, therefore, to this extent great importance, that it is directed against that unthinking way of representing reality, to which everything appears in the shape of accident and chance, and for which determinateness, specificity, takes the form of sensuous independence.
In contrast, then, with determmate laws stands universal attraction, or the bare conception of law. In so far as this pure conception is looked on as the essentially real, or as the true inner being, the determinateness characterising the specific law itself belongs still to the sphere of appearance, or rather to sensible existence. But the pure conception of law transcends not merely the law, which, being itself a determinate law, stands contrasted with other de- terminate laws, but also transcends law as such. The Understanding 145 Understanding 145 determinateness, of which we spoke, is itself strictly a mere vanishing moment, which can no longer come forward here as an essential entity {Wesenheit), for it is only the law which is the truth here: but the conception of law is turned against the law itself. That is to say, in the law distinction itself is immediately apprehended and taken up into the universal, thereby, however, making the moments, whose relation it expresses, subsist as mutually indifferent and inherently real entities. These parts of the distinction found in the law are, however, at the same time themselves determinate aspects. The pure concept of law, as universal attraction, must, to get its true significance, be so apprehended that in it, as the absolutely single and simple, the distinctions which are present in law as such, return again themselves into the inner being, qua bare and simple unity. This unity is the inner " necessity " of the law.
The law is thereby present in a twofold form. In one case it is there as law in which the differences are expressed as independent moments; in the other it is in the form of a simple withdrawal into itself, which agaia can be called Force, but in the sense not of repressed force [spoken of above], but force in general, or the concept of force, an abstraction which absorbs the distinctions involved in what attracts and is attracted. In this sense, e.g., simple electricity is force; the expression of difference falls, however, within the law; this difference is positive and negative electricity. In the case of the motion of falhng bodies force is the simple element, gravity, which has the law that the magnitudes of the different factors in the motion, the time spent, and the space traversed, are VOL, I.— L 146 Phenomenology of Mind to one another in the relation of root and square. Electricity itself is not difference fer se, is not in its essential natui'e a twofold entity consisting of positive and negative electricity; hence it is often said it has the law of being so and so in the way indicated, or again, that it has the property of expressing itself in this fashion. This property is doubtless the essential and pecuhar property of this force, i.e. it belongs to it necessarily. But necessity is here an empty phrase; force must, just because it must, duphcate itself in this manner. Of course, if positive electricity is given, negative electricity is inherently necessary; for the positive element only is by being related to a negative; in other words, the positive element in its very self involves difference from itself, just in the same way as the negative does. But that electricity as such should break itself up into parts in this way — this is not in itself a necessity. Electricity qua simple force is indifferent to its law — to be in the form of positive and negative; and if we call the former its notion and the latter its being, then its notion is indifferent to its being; it merely has this as a property, which just means that this is not per se necessary to it. This indifference takes another form when it is said that to be positive and negative is involved in the definition of electricity, or that this is neither more nor less than its notion and its essence. Its being in that case would mean its existence in general. But in that definition the necessity of its existence is not contained; it exists either because we find it, i.e. its existence is not necessary at all, or else it exists through other forces, i.e. the necessity of its existence is an external necessity. But in that Understanding 147 the determinateness of being through another is what the necessity consists in, we are back again to the plurahty of determinate laws, which we have just left in order to consider law as law. It is only with the latter that we can compare its notion as notion, or its necessity. This necessity, however, has in all these forms shown itself to be just an empty phrase. • There is still another way than that just indicated in which the indifference of law and force, or of notion and being, is found. In the law of motion, e.g., it is necessary for motion to be broken up into the elements time and space, or again, into distance and velocity. Since motion is merely the relation of these factors, motion, the universal, has in this way certainly distinct parts in its own self. But now these parts, time and space, or distance and velocity, do not express in themselves this origination from a single unity. They are indifferent the one to the other. Space is thought of as able to be without time, time without space, and distance at least without velocity — just as their magnitudes are indifferent the one to the other, since they are not related like positive and negative, and consequently do not refer to one another by their very nature. The necessity of partition into distinct factors, then, we certainly do have here; but not the necessity of the parts as such for one another. On that account, however, that first necessity too is itself a merely delusory false necessity. For motion is not itself thought of as something simple or as bare essence, but as, from the first, divided into elements; time and space are in themselves its independent parts or its real elements: in other words, distance and velocity are modes of being, or ways of thinking, each of which 148 Phenomenology of Mind can very well be without the other; and motion is consequently no more than their superficial relation, not their true nature. If it is represented as simple essence or as force, motion is no doubt gravity; but this does not, properly spealdng, contain these distinctions.
The distinction is, then, in both cases no distinction of an inherent or essential kind. Either the universal, force, is indifferent to the division into parts, which is found in the law, or else the distinctions, the parts of the law, are indifferent to one another. Understanding, however, does have the notion of this distinction per se, just by the fact that law is in part the inner being, the inherent nature, but is in it at the same time dis- tinguished. That this distinction is in this way mner distinction is shown by the fact that law is bare and simple force, or is the notion of that distinction, and thus is a distinction of the notion. But still this inner distinction falls to begin with only within under- standing, and is not yet estabhshed in the fact itself. It is thus only its own necessity to which un.derstanding gives expression — the distinction, that is to say, is one which it makes only so as at the same time to express that the distinction is not to be a distinction in the nature of the fact itself. This necessity, which is merely verbal, is thus a rehearsal of the moments which make up the cycle of necessity. They are no doubt distinct, but their distinction is at the same time explicitly stated to be not a distinction