The instinct of reason in this type of consciousness, because the law is at the same time inherently a notion, proceeds to give the law and its moments a purely conceptual form; and proceeds to do this of necessity, but without knowing that this is what it seeks to do. It puts the law to the test of experiment. As the law first appears, it is enveloped in particulars of sense, and the notion constituting its nature is involved with empirical elements. The instinct of reason sets to work to find out by experiment what follows in such and such circumstances. By so doing, the law seems only to be plunged still further into sense; but sense existence really gets lost in the process. The inner purport of this investigation is to find pure conditions of the law; and this means nothing else (even if the consciousness stating the fact were to think it meant something different) than completely to bring out the law in conceptual shape and detach its moments entirely from determinate specific existence. For example, negative electricity, which is known at first, say, in the form of resin-electricity, while positive electricity comes before us as glass-electricity — these, by means of experiments, lose altogether such a significance, and become purely positive and negative electricity, neither of which is bound up any longer with things of a par- ticular kind; and^we can no longer say that there are Observation of Nature 245 bodies whicli are electrical positively, others electrical negatively. In the same way, the relationship of acid and base and their reaction constitute a law in which these opposite factors appear as bodies. Yet these sundered things have no reaUty; the power which tears them apart cannot prevent them entering at the same time into a process; for they are merely this relation. They cannot subsist and be indicated by themselves apart, like a tooth or a claw. That it is their very natuje to pass over directly into a neutral product, makes their existence lie in being cancelled and superseded, or makes it into a universal; and acid and base possess truth merely qua universal. Just then as glass and resin can be equally well positively as negatively electrified, in the same way acid and base are not attached as properties or quaUties to this or that reahty; each thing is only relatively acidulate and basic; what seems to be an absolute base or an absolute acid gets in the so-called Synsomates* the opposite sig- nificance to another.
The result of the experiments is in this way to cancel the moments or inner significations as properties of specific things, and free the predicates from their sub j ects. These predicates are found merely as universal, and in truth that is what they are. Because of this seK-sub- sistence they therefore get the name of kinds of " matter," * A term employed by a chemist, Winterl, at tbe beginning of the nineteenth century to denote combinations intermediate in character between physical mixtures and chemical combinations. In synsomates the bodies undergo in the product, e.g., a change of colour, specific density, and even weight; these changes do not take place in mere physical mix- tures, and yet they do not constitute chemical combination. Examples of synsomates are the blending of water and alcohol, and amalgams of minerals.
246 Phenomenology of Mind which is neither a body nor a property of a body; certainly no one would call acid, positive and nega- tive electricity, heat,* etc., bodies.
Matter, on the contrary, is not a thing that exists, it is being in the sense of universal being, or being in the way the concept is being. Reason, still instinctive, correctly draws this distinction without being conscious that it (reason), by the very fact of its testing the law in every sense-particular, cancels the merely sensuous existence of the law; and, when it construes the mo- ments of the law as forms of matter, their essential natuje is taken to be something universal, and specifi- cally expressed as a non-sensuous element of sense, an incorporeal and yet objective existence.
We have now to see what turn its result takes, and what new shape this activity of observation will, in consequence, assume. The outcome and truth of this experimentation is found to be fure law, freed from sensuous elements; we find it as a concept, which, while present in sense, operates there independently and un- restrained, while enveloped in sense, is detached from it, and is a concept bare and simple. This, which is in truth the essential result, now comes before this con- sciousness itself, but as an object; moreover, since the object is not a result really for it, and is unrelated to the preceding process — the object is a peculiar kind of object, and its relation to consciousness takes the form of another kind of observation. Such an object, where the simple activity of the notion is the principle of the process within it, is an Organism.
* Heat, e.g., is a "mode f motion," a form of "energy."
Observation of Organic Nature ■ 247 a (2) Observation of Organic Nature Organic existence is this absolutely fluid condition wherein the determinateness, which alone would make it a definite entity for an other, is dissolved. Inorganic things involve determinateness in their very essence; and on that account a thing reahses the completeness of the moments of the notion only along with another thing, and hence gets lost when it enters the dialectic movement. In the case of an organic being, on the other hand, all determinate characteristics, by means of which it is palpable to another, are held under the control of the simple organising unity; none of them comes forward as essential and capable of detach- ing itself from the rest and relating itself to an other organic being. What is organic, therefore, preserves itself ia its very relation.
The aspects of law on which the instinct of reason directs its observation here, are, as we see from the above, in the first instance organic nature and in- organic nature in their relation to one another. The latter means for organic nature just the free play — a freedom opposed to the formal principle of organic nature — of those loosely floating characteristics in which nature, in its individual components, is at once dissolved and out of the continuity of which the individuated elements of nature are at the same time resolved and exist separately. Air, water, earth, zones and climate are uni- versal elements of this sort, which make up the indeter- minate simple being of natural individuaUties, and in which these are at the same time reflected into them- selves. Neither the individuality nor the natural element 248 Phenomenology of Mind is absolutely self-contained. On the contrary: in tke independent detachment, which observation finds these assuming towards one another, they stand at the same time in essential relation to one another, but in such a way that their independence and mutual indifierence form the predominating feature, and only in part become abstractions. Here, then, law appears as the relation of an element to the formative process of the organic being, which at one moment has the element over against itself, at another exhibits it within its own self-determining organic structure. But laws like these: animals belonging to the air are of the nature of birds, those belonging to water have the constitution of fish, animals in northerly latitudes have thick coats of hair, and so on — such laws indicate a degree of poverty which does not do justice to the manifold variety of organic nature. Besides the fact that the free activity of organic nature can readily divest its forms of determinate cha- racters like these, and everywhere presents of necessity exceptions to such laws or rules, as we might call them; the characterisation of those very animals to which they do apply is so very superficial, that even the necessity of the " laws " can be nothing else but superficial too, and does not carry us further than what is implied in speaking of the "great influence" of en- vironment on the organism. And this does not tell us what properly falls under that influence and what does not. Such like relations of organic beings to the ele- ments they live in cannot therefore be strictly called laws at all. For, on the one hand, such a relation, when we look at its content, does not exhaust, as we saw, the range of the organic beings considered, and on the other, the terms of the relation itself stand indifferently apart Observation of Organic Nature 249 from one another and convey no necessity. In the con- cept of an acid lies the notion of a base, just as the notion of positive electricity implies that of negative; but even though we do find as a fact a thick coat of hair associated with northerly latitudes, the structure of a fish with water, or that of birds with air, there is nothing in the notion of the north implying the notion of a thick covering of hair, the notion of the structure of fish does not he in the notion of the sea, nor that of birds in that of the air. Because of this free detachment of the two notions from one another, there are as a fact also land animals with the essential characters of a bird, of fish, and so on. The necessity, just because it cannot be conceived to be an inner necessity of the object, ceases also to have a foothold in sense, and can be no longer observed ia actual reahty, but has quitted the sphere of reahty. Finding thus no place in the real object itself, it becomes what is called a " teleological relation," a relation which is external to what is related, and con- sequently the very reverse of a law of its constitution. It is an idea entirely detached from the necessity of nature, a thought which leaves this necessity of nature behind and floats above it aU by itself.* If the relation, above alluded to, of organic existence to the elemental conditions of nature does not ex- press its true beiag, the notion of Purpose, on the other hand, does contain it. The observing attitude does not indeed take the reXo? to be the genuine essence of organic existence; this notion seems to it to fall outside the real nature of the organism, and is then merely that external teleological relation above men- * Cp. with the above, the oscillation between the mechanical and teleolofrical conception of " law " in theoretical biology.
250 Phenomenology of Mind tioned. Yet looking at how the organic being was previously characterised, the organic is in point of fact just realised concrete purpose. For since itself main- tains itself in relation to another, it is just that kind of natural existence in which nature reflects itself into the notion, and the moments of necessity separated out [by Understanding] — a cause and an effect, an active and a passive — are here brought together and com- bined into a single unity. In this way we have here not only something appearing as a result of necessity, but, because it has returned to itself, the last or the result is just as much the first which starts the process, and is to itself the purpose which it realises. What is organic does not produce something, it merely conserves itself, or what is produced is as much there already as produced.
We must elucidate this principle more fully, both as it is in itself and as it is for the instinct of reason, in order to see how reason finds itself there, but does not know itself in what it finds. The concept of purpose then, which rational observation has reached, is, while reason has apprehended it in consciousness, given to reason as something actually real as well; it is not merely an external relation of the actual, but its inner being. This actual, which is itself a purpose, is related purposively to an other, i.e. its relation is a contingent one with respect to what both are immediately; prima facie they are both self-subsistent and indifferent to one another. The real nature of their relation, however, is something different from what they thus appear to be, and its effect has another meaning than sense- perception directly finds. The necessity inherent in the process is concealed, and comes out at the end, but Observation of Organic Nature 251 in such a way that this very end shows it to have been also the first. The end, however, shows this priority of itself by the fact that nothing comes out of the altera- tion the act produced, but what was there already. Or, again, if we start from what is first, this, in coming to the end or the result of its act, merely returns to itself, and, just by so doing, it demonstrates itself to be that which has itself as its end, that is to say, qua first it has already returned to itself, or is self-contained, is in and for itself. What, then, it arrives at by the pro- cess of its action is itself; and its arriving merely at itself means feehng itself, is its seH-feehng. Thus we have here, no doubt, the distinction between what it is and what it seeks; but this is merely the semblance of a distinction, and consequently it is a notion in its very nature.
This is exactly, however, the way self-consciousness is constituted. It distinguishes itself in the same manner from itself, without any distinction being there- by estabhshed. Hence it is that it finds in observa- tion of organic nature nothing else than this kind of reahty; it finds itself in the form of a thing, as a life, and yet, between what it is itself and what it has found, draws a distinction which is, however, no dis- tinction. Just as the instinct of an animal is to seek and consume food, but does not thereby get beyond itself; similarly the instinct of reason in its seek- ing merely finds reason itself. An animal ends with self-feehng. The instinct of reason, on the other hand,, is, at the same time, self -consciousness. But because it is merely instinct, it is put on one side as against consciousness, and in the latter finds its opposite. Its satisfaction is, therefore, broken in two by this 252 Phenomenology of Mind opposite; it finds itself, viz. the purpose, and also finds this purpose in the shape of a thing. But the purpose is seen to he, in the first instance, apart from the thiug presenting itself as a purpose. In the second place, this purpose qua purpose is at the same time objective; it is taken to fall, therefore, not withm the observing consciousness, but within another intelhgence.
Looked at more closely, there hes in the notion of the thing this character as well: — that of being in itself a purpose. It preserves itself; this at once means it is its nature to conceal the necessity controlling it, and presents that necessity in the form of a contin- gent relation. For its freedom, its being on its own account, means just that it behaves towards its necessary condition as something indifferent. It thus sets itself out to be something whose notion falls apart from its existence. In the same way reason is compelled, by letting its own proper notion fall outside it, to look at itself as a thing, as that towards which it is indifferent, and which in consequence is reciprocally indifferent towards it [reason] and towards its own notion. Qua instinct it continues to remain within this state of being, this condition of in- difierence; and the thing expressing the notion remains for it something other than this notion, and the notion other than the thing. Thus for reason the thing organised is only a purpose per se in the sense that the necessity, which lies concealed within the action of the thing — for the active agency there takes up the attitude of being indifferent and isolated — falls outside the organism itself.
Since, however, the organic qua purpose per se cannot behave in any other way than as organic, the Observation of Organic Nature 253 fact of its being per se a purpose is also apparent and sensibly present, and as such it is observed. What is organic shows itself when observed to be something self-preserving, returning and returned into itself. But in this state of being observation does not recognise the concept of purpose, and does not Ltiow that the notion of purpose is not in an intelligence anywhere else, but just exists here and in the form of a thing. Observation makes a distinction between the concept of purpose and self-existence and self-preservation, which is not a distinction at all. That it is no distinction is something of which it is not aware; what it is aware of is an act which appears contingent and indifferent towards what is brought about by that act, and towards the unity which is all the while the principle connecting both; that act and this purpose are taken to fall asunder.
On this view the special function of the organic is to be the inner operating activity lying in between its first and last purpose, so far as this action imphes the character of singleness. So far, however, as the action has the character of universality, and the active agent is equated with what is the outcome of its operation, this purposive action as such would not seem to belong to the function of organic beings. That individual action, which is merely a means, comes, owing to its individual form, to be determined by an entirely individual or contingent necessity. What an organic being does for the preservation of itself as an individual, or of itself qua genus, is, therefore, quite lawless as regards this immediate content: for notion and universal fall outside it. Its action would accord- ingly be empty agency without any content in 254 Phenomenology of Mind it; it would not even be the efficiency of a machine, for this has a purpose and its activity in conse- quence a definite content. If it were deserted in this way by the universal, it would be an activity of a mere being qua being, i.e. would be an activity not forthwith reflected into itself, like that of an acid or a base — one which could not be cut off from its imme- diate existence, nor give up this existence that gets lost when related to its opposite, but would be able to pre- serve itself. The kind of being, whose activity is here under consideration is, however, set down as a thing preserving itself in its relation to its opposite. The activity as such is nothing but the bare insubstantial form of its independent existence on its own account; and the purpose of the activity, its substance — a. sub- stance, which is not simply a determinate being, but the universal — does not fall outside the activity. It is an activity reverting into itself by its own nature, and is not turned back into itself by any ahen, external agency.
This union of universality and activity, however, is not a matter for this attitude of observation, because that unity is essentially the inner movement of what is organic, and can only be apprehended conceptually. Observation, however, seeks the moments in the form of existence and diuation; and because the organic whole consists essentially in not containing the moments in that form, and in not letting them be found within it in that way, this observing consciousness, by its way of looking at the matter, transforms the opposition into one which conforms and is adapted to its own point of view.
An organism comes before the observing consciousness Observation of Organic Nature 255 in this maimer as a way of relating two fixed and exist- ing moments — as a relation of elements in an opposi- tion, wtose two factors seem in one respect really given in observation, while in another respect, as regards their content, they express the opposition of the organic concept of purpose and actual reahty. But because the notion as such is there effaced, this takes place in an obscure and superficial way, where thought sinks to the level of mere ideal presentation. Thus we see the notion taken much in the sense of what is inner, reahty in the sense of what is outer; and their relation gives rise to the law that " the outer is the expression of the inner."
Let us consider more closely this inner with its opposite and their relation to one another. In the fixst place, we find that the two factors of the law no longer have such an import as we found in the case of previous laws, where the elements appeared as independent things, each being a particular body; nor, again, in the second place, do we find that the universal is to have its existence somewhere else outside what actually is. On the contrary, the organic being is, in undivided oneness and as a whole, the fundamental fact, it is the content of inner and outer, and is the same for both. The opposition is on that account of a purely formal character; its real sides have the same ultimate principle inherently constituting them what they are. At the same time, however, since inner and outer are also opposite realities and each is a distinct being for observation, they each seem to obser- vation to have a peculiar content of their own. This pecuhar content, since it consists of the same sub- stance, or the same organic unity, can, however, in 256 Phenomenology of Mind point of fact, be only a different form of tliat unity, of that substance; and this is indicated by observa- tion when it says that the outer is merely the expression of the inner.
We have seen in the case of the concept of purpose the same characteristic features of the relation, viz. the indifferent independence of the diverse factors, and their unity in that independence, a unity in which they disappear.
We have now to see what shape and embodiment inner and outer assume in actually existing. The inner as such must have an outer being and an embodiment, just as much as the outer as such; for the inner is an object, or is affirmed as being, and is there for observation to deal with.
The organic substance qua inner is the Soul simply, the pure notion of purpose or the universal which in dividing into its discrete elements remains all the same a universal fluent continuity, and hence in its being appears as action or the movement of vanishing reality; while, on the other hand, the outer, opposed to that existing inner, subsists in the passive being of the organic. The law, as the relation of that inner to this outer, consequently expresses its content, now by setting forth universal moments, or simple essential elements, and again by setting forth the realised essential nature or the form and shape actually assumed. Those first simple organic properties, to call them so, are Sensibihty, Irritability, and Reproduction. These pro- perties, at least the two first, seem indeed to refer not to the organism in general, but merely to the animal organism. The vegetable level of organic life, too, expresses in point of fact only the bare and simple Observation of Organic Nature 257 notion of organism, whicli does not develop and evolve its moments. Hence in regard to those moments, so far as observation has to take account of them, we must confine ourselves to the organism which presents them existing in developed form.
As to these moments, then, they are directly derived from the notion of self-purpose, of a being whose end is its own self. For Sensibility expresses in general the simple notion of organic reflexion into itself, or the universal continuity of this notion. Irritabihty, again, expresses organic elasticity, the capacity to exercise the function of reacting simul- taneously with self-reflexion, and expresses, in contrast to the previous state of being passively and inertly within itself, the condition of being exphcitly actuahsed — a reahsation, where that abstract existence for its own sake comes to be an existence for something else. Reproduction, however, is the operation of this entire self-reflected organism, its activity as having its purpose in itself, its activity qua genus, wherein the individual repels itself from itself, where it repeats by procreation either the organic parts or the whole individual. Re- production, taken in the sense of self-preservation in general, expresses the formal principle or conception of the organic, or the fact of Sensibihty; but it is, properly speaking, the reahsed notion of organic exist- ence, or the whole, which either qua individual returns into itself through the process of producing individual parts of itseK, or qua genus does so through the pro- duction of distinct individuals.