it is a matter of indifference to this stream of hfe what sort of mills it drives.
In the first place we must now note that this notion is not to be taken here, as it was formerly when,, we were considering the inner proper, in its character as a process or development of the moments; we must take it in its form as bare and simple "inner," which constitutes the purely universal aspect as against the concrete Uving reality; it is the element in which the existing members of the organic shape find their sub- Observation of Organic Nature 21 Z sistence. For it is this shape we are considering here, and in it the essential nature of hfe appears as the simple fact of subsistence. That being so, the exist- ence for another, the specific character of the real embodied form, is taken up into this simple univer- sahty, in which its nature lies, a specificity that is likewise of a simple universal non-sensuous kind, and can only be that which finds expression in number. Number is the middle term of the organic form, which hnks indeterminate life with actual concrete life, simple Uke the former, and determinate like the latter. That which in the case of the former, the inner, would have the sense of number, would require to express the outer after its manner as multiform reahty, — kinds of hfe, colour and so on, in general as the whole host of differences which are developed as phenomena of hfe.
If the two aspects of the organic whole the one being the inner, while the other is the outer, in such a way that each again has in it an inner and an outer — are compared with reference to the inner both sides have, we find that the inner of the first is the notion, in the sense of the restless activity of abstraction; the second has for its inner, however, inactive universahty, which involves also the constant characteristic — number. Hence, if, because the notion develops its moments in the former, this aspect made a delusive promise of laws owing to the semblance of necessity in the relation, the latter directly disclaims doing so, since number shows itself to be the determining fea- ture of one aspect of its laws. For number is just that entirely inactive, inert, and indifferent characteristic in which every movement and relational process is extinguished, and which has broken the bridge leadiag YOL. I.— T 274 Phenomenology of Mind to the living expression of impulses, manner of life, and whatever other sensuous existence there is.
This way of considering the embodied organic shape as such and the inner qua inner merely of that em- bodied form, is, however, in point of fact, no longer a consideration of organic existence. For both the aspects, which were to be related, are merely taken indifferent to one another, and thereby reflection into self, the essential nature of organism, is done away with. What we have done here is rather to transfer that attempted comparison of inner and outer to the sphere of inorganic nature. The notion with its iniinity is here merely the inner essence, which lies hidden away within or falls outside in self-consciousness, and no longer, as in the case of the organism, possesses its objectivity in the actual present. This relation of inner and outer has thus still to be considered in its own proper sphere.
In the first place, that inner element of the form and shape assumed, being the simple individual existence of an inorganic thing, is the specific gravity. As a simply existing fact, this can be observed just as much as the characteristic of number, which is the only one suited to it; or properly speaking can be found by comparing observations; and it seems in this way to furnish one aspect of the law. The embodied form, colour, hardness, toughness, and an innumerable host of other properties, would together constitute the outer aspect, and would have to give expression to the characteristic of the inner, number, so that the one should find its counterpart in the other.
Now because negativity is here taken not in the sense of a movement of the process, but as ai; inoperative Observation of Organic Nature 275 unity, or as self-existence pure and simple, it appears really as that by which the thing resists the process, and maintains itseK within itself and in a condition of indifierence towards it. By the fact, however, that this simple self-existence, this bare being-for-itself, is an inactive indifference towards an other, specific gravity appears as one property along- side others; and therewith all necessary relation on its part to this plurality, or, in other words, all conformity to law, ceases.
The specific gravity in the sense of this simple inner aspect does not contain difference in itself, or the difference it has is merely non-essential; for its bare simphcity just cancels every distinction of an essential kind. This non-essential difference, quantity, was thus bound to find its other or counterpart in the other aspect, the plurality of properties, since it is only by doing so that it is difference at all. When this plurahty itself is held together within the simple form of opposi- tion, and is determined, say, as cohesion, so that this cohesion is self- existence in otherness, as specific gravity is pure self-existence, then cohesion here is primarily this pure conceptually constituted characteristic as against the previous characteristic. The mode of framing the law would thus be what we discussed above, in dealing with the relation of sensibihty to irritability.
Furthermore, cohesion, qua conception of self-exist- ence in otherness, is merely the abstraction of the aspect opposed to specific gravity, and as such has no existential reahty. For self-existence in its other is the process wherein the inorganic would have to ex- press its self-existence as a form of self-conservation, 276 Phenomenology of Mind which again would prevent it emerging from the pro- cess as a constituent moment of a product. Yet this goes directly against its nature, which has no pur- pose or universaHty in it. Rather, its process is simply the specific way of bringing out how its self-existence, in the sense of its specific gravity, cancels itself. This determinate mode of procedure, which in that case would constitute the true principle imphed in its cohesion, is itself however entirely indifferent to the other notion, that of the determinate quantity of ts specific gravity. If the mode of procedure were left entirely out of account, and attention confined to the idea of quantity, we might be able to think of a feature like this: — the greater specific weight, as it is a higher intensiveness of being [Insichseyn), would resist entering into the process more than a less specific weight. But, conversely, freedom of self-exist- ence {Filrsicliseyn) shows itself only in the faciUty to meddle with and enter into everything, and maintain itself throughout this manifold variety. That intensity without extension of relations is an abstraction with no substance in it, for extension constitutes the existence of intensity. The self-conservation of the inorganic element in its relation lies however, as already men- tioned, outside its nature, since it does not contain the principle of movement within it, or because its being is not absolute negativity and not a notion.
When this other aspect of the inorganic, on the other hand, is considered not as a process, but as an in- operative being, it is ordinary cohesion. It is a simple sense property standing on the one side over against the liberated moment of otherness, which lies scattered over a plurality of properties indifferent_^to and apart Observation of Organic Nature 277 from one another, and appears amongst these as specific gravity or weight. The multipHcity of properties together then constitutes the other side to the latter [specific gravity]. In its case, however, as in the case of the multipHcity, number is the only characteristic feature, which not merely does not bring out a relation and a transition from one to another of these properties, but consists essentially in having no necessary relation; its nature is rather to make manifest the absence of all conformity to law, for it expresses the determinate character as one that is non-essential. Thus we see that a series of bodies, whose distinction is expressed as a numerical difference of their specific weights, by no means runs parallel to a series where the difference is constituted by other properties, even if, for purposes of simpHfication, we select merely one or two of them. For, as a matter of fact, it could only be the tout ensemble of the properties which would have to constitute the other parallel aspect here. In order to make this into a connected single compact whole, observation finds before it the quantitative determinations of these various properties, but, on the other hand, their differences come to light as quahtative. In this compound, then, what would have to be characterised as positive or negative, and would be cancelled each by the other — in general, the internal arrangement and exposition of the equation, which would be very composite, — would be- long to the notion. The notion however is excluded from operating just by the way in which the properties are found lying; they are to be picked up as mere existent entities. In this condition of mere being none is nega- tive in its relation to another: the one exists just as much as the other, and in no other fashion does it 278 Phenomenology of Mind indicate its presence in the arrangement of the whole.
In the case of a series with concurrent differences — whether the relation is meant to be that of simultaneous increase on both sides or of increase in the one and decrease in the other — interest centres merely in the last simple expression of this combined whole, which would constitute the one aspect of the law with specific gravity for the opposite. But this one aspect, qua resultant fact, is nothing else than what has been already mentioned, viz. an individual property, say, like ordinary cohesion, alongside and indifferent to which the others, specific gravity among them, are found lying, and every other can be selected equally rightly, i.e. equally wrongly, to stand as representative of the entire other aspect; one as well as the other would merely "represent" or stand for [German vorstellen] the essential reahty (Wesen), but would not actually be the fact (SacJie) itself. Thus it seems that the attempt to find series of bodies which should in their two aspects run continuously and simply parallel, and express the essential nature of the bodies in a law hold- ing of these aspects, must be looked at as an aim that is ignorant ahke of what it is about and of the means for carrying it through.
At a previous stage the relation between the inner and outer phases in the organic form set before observation was forthwith transferred to the sphere of the inorganic. The determinate condition to which this is due can now be stated more precisely, and there arises thence a further form and relation in this connection. What seems to present the possibility of such a comparison of inner and outer in the case of Observation of Organic Nature 270 the inorganic, drops away altogether when we come to the organic. The inorganic inner is an inner bare and simple, which comes before perception as a merely existent property. Its characteristic determination is therefore essentially quantity, and qua existent property it appears indifferent towards the outer, or the plurahty of other sense properties. The self- existence of the living organism, however, does not stand on one side opposed to its outer, it has the principle of otherness within itself. If we charac- terise self-existence as a simple self-preserving relation to self, its otherness is negativity bare and simple; and organic unity is the unity of self-identical self- relation and pure negativity. This unity is qua unity the inner phase of the organic; the organic is thereby inherently universal, it is a genus. The freedom of the genus with reference to its reaUsation is, however, something different from the freedom of specific gravity with reference to embodied form. That of the latter is freedom in the sphere of existence {seyende Freiheit), in the sense that it takes its stand on one side as a particular property. But because it is an existent freedom, it is also only a determinate character essentially belonging to this one embodied form, or through which this form qua reahty is a determinate entity. The freedom, however, of the genus is a universal freedom, and indifferent to this embodied form, or towards its reahsation. The characteristic feature attaching to the self-existence as such of the inorganic is therefore subordinated in the case of the organic to its self-existence, while in the case of the inorganic it is subordinated to its mere existence. Hence, although in the case of the latter that determinate characteristic ^80 Phenomenology of Mind appears at the same time only as a property, yet it possesses the value of being essential, because qua bare negative it stands over against concrete existence which is being for another; and this simple negative in its final form as a particular characteristic is a number. The organic, however, is an individual entity, which is itself pure negativity, and hence eradicates within it the fixed determinateness of number, which suits the indifference of mere being. So far as it has in it the moment of indifferent being and thereby of number, this numerical element can therefore only be regarded as a side issue within it, but not as the essential nature of its living activity.
But now, though pure negativity, the principle of the process, does not fall outside organic existence, and though the organic does not possess negativity as an adjectival characteristic attached to its inner nature, the singleness of the individual organism being instead inherently universal, yet this pure singleness is not therein developed and reahsed in its various moments as if these were themselves abstract or universal. On the contrary, this developed expression makes its appearance outside that universality, which thus falls back into mere immanence and inwardness; and between the concrete reahsation, the embodied form, i.e. the self-developing individual singleness of the organism, and the organic universal, the genus, appears the de- terminate or specific universal, the species. The ex- istential form, to which the negativity of the uni- versal, the negativity of the genus, attains, is merely the explicitly developed movement of a process, carried out among the parts of the given shape assumed by the If the genus had the different parts within Observation of Organic Nature 28 1 itself as an unbroken simple unity, so that its simple negativity as sucli were at the same time a movement, carried on through parts equally simple and directly uni- versal in themselves, which were here actual as such moments, then the organic genus would be conscious- ness. But the simple determinate character, qua determinateness of the species, is present in an un- conscious manner in the genus; concrete realisation starts from the genus; what finds express realisation is not the genus as such, i.e. not really thought. This genus qua actual organic fact, is merely represented by a deputy. Number, which is the representative here, seems to designate the transition from the genus into the individual embodiment, and to set before observation the two aspects of conceptual necessity, one in the form of a simple characteristic, the other in the form of an organic shape with all its manifold variety fully developed. This representative, however, really denotes the in- difference and freedom of the universal and the indi- vidual as regards one another; the genus puts the individual at the mercy of mere quantitative difference, a non-essential element, but the individual qua Hvitig shows itself equally independent of this difference. True universahty, in the way specified, is here merely inner nature; qua characteristic determining the species it is formal universahty; and in opposition to the latter, that true universahty takes its stand on the side of organic individual singleness, which is a Hving individual entity by means of that universahty, and owing to its umer nature is not troubled by its determinate char- acter as a species. But this singleness is not at the same time a imiversal individual, i.e. one in which universality would have external realisation as well; 282 Phenomenology of Mind this falls outside the living organic whole. This universal individual, however, in the way it is immedi- ately the individual of the natural embodiments of organic hfe, is not consciousness itself; its existence qua single organic living individual cannot fall outside that universal if it is to be consciousness.
We have, then, here a connected system, where one extreme is the universal hfe qua universal or genus, the other being that same Hfe qua a single whole, or universal individual: the mediating term, however, is a com- bination of both, the first seeming to fit itself into it as determinate universality or as species, the other as single whole proper or individual singleness. And since this connected system belongs altogether to the aspect of the organic embodiment, it comprehends within it too what is distinguished as inorganic nature.
Since, now, the universal Hfe qua the simple essence of the genus develops from its side the distinctions of the notion, and has to exhibit them in the form of a series of simple determining characteristics, this series is a system of distinctions set up indifferently, or is a numerical series. Whereas formerly the or- ganic in the form of something individual and single was placed in opposition to this non-essential distinction [of quantity], a distinction which neither expresses nor contains its living nature; and while pre- cisely the same has to be stated as regards the inorganic, taking into account its entire existence developed in the pluraHty of its properties, — it is now the universal individual which is not merely to be looked on as free from every articulation of the genus, but also as the power and might inherent in the genus. The genus disperses into species after the manner of the uni- Observation of Organic Nature 283 versality characteristic of number, or again it may adopt as its principle of division particular characteristics of its existence like figure, colour, etc. While prosecuting this aim, the genus meets with violence at the hands of the universal individual, the earth,* which in the role of universal negativity establishes the distinctions as they exist within itself, — the nature of which, owing to the substance they belong to, is different from the nature of that genus, — and makes good these distinctions as against the process of generic systematisation. This action on the part of the genus comes to be quite a restricted business, which it can only carry on inside those mighty elements, and which is left with gaps and arrested and interrupted at all points through their unbridled violence.
It follows from all this that in the embodied organic existence observation can only meet with reason in the sense of hf e in general, which, however, in its differentiat- ing process involves really no rational sequence and articulation, and is not a thoroughly grounded system of shapes and forms. If in the process of connecting the moments which organic embodiment involves, the mediating term, which contains the species and its reahsation in the form of a single individuality, had with- in it the two extremes of inner universahty and universal individuahty, then this middle term would have, in the movement of its reahty, the expression and the nature of universality, and would be seK-systematising development. It is thus that consciousness takes as the middle term between universal spirit and its in- * Cp. Logik, WAV., V. p. 153: "The earth as a concrete whole is at once a universal nature or genus as well as an individual. Cp. also Naturphilosophie, §§ 337, 338.
284 Phenomenology of Mind dividuation or sense-consciousness, the system of shapes assumed by consciousness, as an orderly self-constituted whole of the life of spirit,— the system of forms of conscious hfe which is dealt with in this treatise, and which finds its objective existential expression as the history of the world. But organic nature has no history; it drops from its universal life immediately into the indi^dduation of existence; and the moments of simple determinateness and individual Hving activity which are united in this reahsation bring about the process of change merely as a contingent movement wherein each plays its own part, and the whole is preserved. But the energy thus exerted is restricted, so far as itself is concerned, merely to its own focus, because the whole is not present in it; and the whole is not there because the whole is not as such here for itself.
Besides the fact, then, that reason in observing organic nature only comes to see itself as universal life in general, it comes to see the development and reahsa- tion of this life merely by way of systems distinguished quite generally, in the determination of which the essential reahty hes not in the organic fact as such, but in the universal individual [the earthj; and among these distinctions of earth [it comes to see that development and reahsation] in the form of sequences which the genus attempts to estabhsh.
Since, then, in its reahsation, the universahty found in organic hfe lets itself drop directly into the ex- treme of individuation, without any true self-referring process of mediation, the thing before the observing mind is merely a would-be " meaning "; and if reason can be at the trouble to observe what is thus ' meant ' here, it is confined to describing and recording nature's Observation of Organic Nature 285 '' meanings " and incidental suggestions. This irrational freedom of ''fancying" and ''thinking" doubtless will produce on all sides beginnings of laws, traces of neces- sity, hints and allusions to order and sequence, ingenious and specious relations of all kinds. But in relating the organic to the different facts of the inorganic, elements, zones, climates, so far as regards law and necessary connection, observation never gets further than the idea of a ''great influence." So too on the other side, where individuahty has not the significance of the earth, but of the oneness immanent in organic hfe, this, in immediate unity with the universal, no doubt con- stitutes the genus, but its simple unity is just for that reason determined merely as a number, and hence lets go the quahtative appearance; here observation cannot get further than making clever remarks, bringing out interesting points of connection, making friendly ad- vances to the notion. But clever remarks do not amount to a knowledge of necessity; interesting points of con- nection stop short at being simply of interest, while the interest is still nothing but arbitrary " opinion " about the rational; and the friendliness of the individual in making allusion to a notion is a childlike friendliness which is childish if as it stands it is to be or wants to be worth anything.