George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - Being (Chap. 1) lyrics

Volume One: The Objective Logic Book One: The Doctrine of Being § 130 Being is the indeterminate immediate; it is free from determinateness in relation to essence and also from any which it can possess within itself. This reflectionless being is being as it is immediately in its own self alone. § 131 Because it is indeterminate being, it lacks all quality; but in itself, the character of indeterminateness attaches to it only in contrast to what is determinate or qualitative. But determinate being stands in contrast to being in general, so that the very indeterminateness of the latter constitutes its quality. It will therefore be shown that the first being is in itself determinate, and therefore, secondly, that it pa**es over into determinate being — is determinate being — but that this latter as finite being sublates itself and pa**es over into the infinite relation of being to its own self, that is, thirdly, into being-for-self. A Being § 132 Being, pure being, without any further determination. In its indeterminate immediacy it is equal only to itself. It is also not unequal relatively to an other; it has no diversity within itself nor any with a reference outwards. It would not be held fast in its purity if it contained any determination or content which could be distinguished in it or by which it could be distinguished from an other. It is pure indeterminateness and emptiness. There is nothing to be intuited in it, if one can speak here of intuiting; or, it is only this pure intuiting itself. Just as little is anything to be thought in it, or it is equally only this empty thinking. Being, the indeterminate immediate, is in fact nothing, and neither more nor less than nothing. B Nothing § 133 Nothing, pure nothing: it is simply equality with itself, complete emptiness, absence of all determination and content — undifferentiatedness in itself. In so far as intuiting or thinking can be mentioned here, it counts as a distinction whether something or nothing is intuited or thought. To intuit or think nothing has, therefore, a meaning; both are distinguished and thus nothing is (exists) in our intuiting or thinking; or rather it is empty intuition and thought itself, and the same empty intuition or thought as pure being. Nothing is, therefore, the same determination, or rather absence of determination, and thus altogether the same as, pure being.® C Becoming 1. Unity of Being and Nothing § 134 Pure Being and pure nothing are, therefore, the same. What is the truth is neither being nor nothing, but that being — does not pa** over but has pa**ed over — into nothing, and nothing into being. But it is equally true that they are not undistinguished from each other, that, on the contrary, they are not the same, that they are absolutely distinct, and yet that they are unseparated and inseparable and that each immediately vanishes in its opposite. Their truth is therefore, this movement of the immediate vanishing of the one into the other: becoming, a movement in which both are distinguished, but by a difference which has equally immediately resolved itself. ® Remark 1: The Opposition of Being and Nothing in Ordinary Thinking Remark 2: Defectiveness of the Expression 'Unity, Identity of Being and Nothing' Remark 3: The Isolating of These Abstractions Remark 4: Incomprehensibility of the Beginning 2. Moments of Becoming: Coming-to-be and Ceasing-to-be 3. The Sublation of Becoming Remark: The Expression ‘To Sublate' § 184 To sublate, and the sublated (that which exists ideally as a moment), constitute one of the most important notions in philosophy. It is a fundamental determination which repeatedly occurs throughout the whole of philosophy, the meaning of which is to be clearly grasped and especially distinguished from nothing. What is sublated is not thereby reduced to nothing. Nothing is immediate; what is sublated, on the other hand, is the result of mediation; it is a non-being but as a result which had its origin in a being. It still has, therefore, in itself the determinate from which it originates. § 185 'To sublate' has a twofold meaning in the language: on the one hand it means to preserve, to maintain, and equally it also means to cause to cease, to put an end to. Even 'to preserve' includes a negative elements, namely, that something is removed from its influences, in order to preserve it. Thus what is sublated is at the same time preserved; it has only lost its immediacy but is not on that account annihilated. § 186 The two definitions of 'to sublate' which we have given can be quoted as two dictionary meanings of this word. But it is certainly remarkable to find that a language has come to use one and the same word for two opposite meanings. It is a delight to speculative thought to find in the language words which have in themselves a speculative meaning; the German language has a number of such. The double meaning of the Latin tollere (which has become famous through the Ciceronian pun: tollendum est Octavium) does not go so far; its affirmative determination signifies only a lifting-up. Something is sublated only in so far as it has entered into unity with its opposite; in this more particular signification as something reflected, it may fittingly be called a moment. In the case of the lever, weight and distance from a point are called its mechanical moments on account of the sameness of their effect, in spite of the contrast otherwise between something real, such as a weight, and something ideal, such as a mere spatial determination, a line.' We shall often have occasion to notice that the technical language of philosophy employs Latin terms for reflected determinations, either because the mother tongue has no words for them or if it has, as here, because its expression calls to mind more what is immediate, whereas the foreign language suggests more what is reflected. § 187 The more precise meaning and expression which being and nothing receive, now that they are moments, is to be ascertained from the consideration of determinate being as the unity in which they are preserved. Being is being, and nothing is nothing, only in their contradistinction from each other; but in their truth, in their unity, they have vanished as these determinations and are now something else. Being and nothing are the same; but just because they are the same they are no longer being and nothing, but now have a different significance. In becoming they were coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be; in determinate being, a differently determined unity, they are again differently determined moments. This unity now remains their base from which they do not again emerge in the abstract significance of being and nothing. § 188 In considering determinate being the emphasis falls on its determinate character; the determinateness is in the form of being, and as such it is quality. Through its quality, something is determined as opposed to an other, as alterable and finite; and as negatively determined not only against an other but also in its own self. This its negation as at first opposed to the finite something is the infinite; the abstract opposition in which these determinations appear resolves itself into the infinity which is free from the opposition, into being-for-self. § 189 The treatment of determinate being falls therefore into three parts: A. Determinate being as such B. Something and other, finitude C. Qualitative infinity. A Determinate Being as Such (a) Determinate Being in General (b) Quality (c) Something B Finitude (a) Something and Other (b) Determination, Constitution and Limit (c) Finitude [a] The Immediacy of Finitude [b] Limitation and the Ought Remark: The Ought § 262 The ought has recently played a great part in philosophy, especially in connection with morality and also in metaphysics generally, as the ultimate and absolute concept of the identity of the in-itself or self-relation, and of the determinateness or limit. § 263 'You can, because you ought' — this expression, which is supposed to mean a great deal, is implied in the notion of ought. For the ought implies that one is superior to the limitation; in it the limit is sublated and the in-itself of the ought is thus an identical self-relation, and hence the abstraction of 'can'. But conversely, it is equally correct that: 'you cannot, just because you ought.' For in the ought, the limitation as limitation is equally implied; the said formalism of possibility has, in the limitation, a reality, a qualitative otherness opposed to it and the relation of each to the other is a contradiction, and thus a 'cannot', or rather an impossibility. § 264 In the Ought the transcendence of finitude, that is, infinity, begins. The ought is that which, in the further development, exhibits itself in accordance with the said impossibility as the infinity. § 265 With respect to the form of the limitation and the ought, two prejudices can be criticised in more detail. First of all, great stress is laid on the limitations of thought, of reason, and so on, and it is a**erted that the limitation cannot be transcended. To make such as a**ertion is to be unaware that the very fact that something is determined as a limitation implies that the limitation is already transcended. For a determinateness, a limit, is determined as a limitation only in opposition to its other in general, that is, in opposition to that which is free from the limitation; the other of a limitation is precisely the being beyond it. Stone and metal do not transcend their limitation because this is not a limitation for them. If, however, in the case of such general propositions framed by the understanding, such as that limitation cannot be transcended, thought will not apply itself to finding out what is implied in the Notion, then it can be directed to the world of actuality where such proportions show themselves to be completely unreal. just because thought is supposed to be superior to actuality, to dwell apart from it in higher regions and therefore to be itself determined as an ought-to-be, on the one hand, it does not advance to the Notion, and, on the other hand, it stands in just as untrue a relation to actuality as it does to the Notion. Because the stone does not think, does not even feel, its limitedness is not a limitation for it, that is, is not a negation in it for sensation, imagination, thought, etc., which it does not possess. But even the stone, as a something, contains the distinction of its determination or in-itself and its determinate being, and to that extent it, too, transcends its limitation; the Notion which is implicit in it contains the identity of the stone with its other. If it is a base capable of being acted on by an acid, then it can be oxidised, and neutralised, and so on. In oxidation, neutralisation and so on, it overcomes its limitation of existing only as a base; it transcends it, and similarly the acid overcomes its limitation of being an acid. This ought, the obligation to transcend limitations, is present in both acid and caustic base in such a degree that it is only by force that they can be kept fixed as (waterless, that is, purely non-neutral) acid and caustic base. § 266 If, however, an existence contains the Notion not merely as an abstract in-itself, but as an explicit, self-determined totality, as instinct, life, ideation, etc., then in its own strength it overcomes the limitation and attains a being beyond it. The plant transcends the limitation of being a seed, similarly, of being blossom, fruit, leaf; the seed becomes the developed plant, the blossom fades away, and so on. The sentient creature, in the limitation of hunger, thirst, etc., is the urge to overcome this limitation and it does overcome it. It feels pain, and it is the privilege of the sentient nature to feel pain; it is a negation in its self, and the negation is determined as a limitation in its feeling, just because the sentient creature has the feeling of its self, which is the totality that transcends this determinateness. If it were not above and beyond the determinateness, it would not feel it as its negation and would feel no pain. But it is reason, thought, which is supposed to be unable to transcend limitation — reason, which is the universal explicitly beyond particularity as such (that is, all particularity), which is nothing but the overcoming of limitation! Granted, not every instance of transcending and being beyond limitation is a genuine liberation from it, a veritable affirmation; even the ought itself, and abstraction in general, is in imperfect transcending. However, the reference to the wholly abstract universal is a sufficient reply to the equally abstract a**ertion that limitation cannot be transcended, or, again, even the reference to the infinite in general is a sufficient refutation of the a**ertion that the finite cannot be transcended. § 267 In this connection we may mention a seemingly ingenious fancy of Leibniz: that if a magnet possessed consciousness it would regard its pointing to the north as a determination of its will, as a law of its freedom. On the contrary, if it possessed consciousness and consequently will and freedom, it would be a thinking being. Consequently, space for it would be universal, embracing every direction, so that the single direction to the north would be rather a limitation on its freedom, just as much as being fixed to one spot would be a limitation for a man although not for a plant. § 268 On the other hand, the ought is the transcending, but still only finite transcending, of the limitation. Therefore, it has its place and its validity in the sphere of finitude where it holds fast to being-in-itself in opposition to limitedness, declaring the former to be the regulative and essential factor relatively to what is null. Duty is an ought directed against the particular will, against self-seeking desire and capricious interest and it is held up as an ought to the will in so far as this has the capacity to isolate itself from the true. Those who attach such importance to the ought of morality and fancy that morality is destroyed if the ought is not recognized as ultimate truth, and those too who, reasoning from the level of the understanding, derive a perpetual satisfaction from being able to confront everything there is with an ought, that is, with a 'knowing better' — and for that very reason are just as loath to be robbed of the ought — do not see that as regards the finitude of their sphere the ought receives full recognition. But in the world of actuality itself, Reason and Law are not in such a bad way that they only ought to be — it is only the abstraction of the in-itself that stops at this-any more than the ought is in its own self perennial and, what is the same thing, that finitude is absolute. The philosophy of Kant and Fichte sets up the ought as the highest point of the resolution of the contradictions of Reason; but the truth is that the ought is only the standpoint which clings to finitude and thus to contradiction. [c] Transition of the Finite into the Infinite C Infinity (a) The Infinite in General (b) Alternating Determination of the Finite and the Infinite (c) Affirmative Infinity Transition Remark 1: The Infinite Progress Remark 2: Idealism § 316 The proposition that the finite is ideal [ideell] constitutes idealism. The idealism of philosophy consists in nothing else than in recognising that the finite has no veritable being. Every philosophy is essentially an idealism or at least has idealism for its principle, and the question then is only how far this principle is actually carried out. This is as true of philosophy as of religion; for religion equally does not recognise finitude as a veritable being, as something ultimate and absolute or as something underived, uncreated, eternal. Consequently the opposition of idealistic and realistic philosophy has no significance. A philosophy which ascribed veritable, ultimate, absolute being to finite existence as such, would not deserve the name of philosophy; the principles of ancient or modern philosophies, water, or matter, or atoms are thoughts, universals, ideal entities, not things as they immediately present themselves to us, that is, in their sensuous individuality — not even the water of Thales. For although this is also empirical water, it is at the same time also the in-itself or essence of all other things, too, and these other things are not self-subsistent or grounded in themselves, but are posited by, are derived from, an other, from water, that is they are ideal entities. Now above we have named the principle or the universal the ideal (and still more must the Notion, the Idea, spirit be so named); and then again we have described individual, sensuous things as ideal in principle, or in their Notion, still more in spirit, that is, as sublated; here we must note, in pa**ing, this twofold aspect which showed itself in connection with the infinite, namely that on the one hand the ideal is concrete, veritable being, and on the other hand the moments of this concrete being are no less ideal — are sublated in it; but in fact what is, is only the one concrete whole from which the moments are inseparable. § 317 By the ideal [dem Ideellen] is meant chiefly the form of figurate conception and imagination, and what is simply in my conception, or in the Notion, or in the idea, in imagination, and so on, is called ideal, so that even fancies are counted as ideals — conceptions which are not only distinct from the real world, but are supposed to be essentially not real. In point of fact, the spirit is the idealist proper; in spirit, even as feeling, imagination and still more as thinking and comprehending, the content is not present as a so-called real existence; in the simplicity of the ego such external being is present only as sublated, it is for me, it is ideally in me. This subjective idealism, either in the form of the unconscious idealism of consciousness generally, or consciously enunciated and set up as a principle, concerns only the form of conception according to which a content is mine; in the systematic idealism of subjectivity this form is declared to be the only true exclusive form in opposition to the form of objectivity or reality, of the external existence of that content. Such idealism is [merely] formal because it disregards the content of imagination or thought, which content in being imagined or thought can remain wholly in its finitude. In such an idealism nothing is lost, just as much because the reality of such a finite content, the existence filled with finitude, is preserved, as because, in so far as abstraction is made from such finite reality, the content is supposed to be of no consequence in itself; and in it nothing is gained for the same reason that nothing is lost, because the ego, conception, spirit, remains filled with the same content of finitude. The opposition of the form of subjectivity and objectivity is of course one of the finitudes; but the content, as taken up in sensation, intuition or even in the more abstract element of conception, of thought, contains finitudes in abundance and with the exclusion of only one of the modes of finitude, namely, of the said form of subjective and objective, these finitudes are certainly not eliminated, still less have they spontaneously fallen away. Being-for-self § 318 In being-for-self, qualitative being finds its consummation; it is infinite being. The being of the beginning lacks all determination. Determinate being is sublated but only immediately sublated being. It thus contains, to begin with, only the first negation, which is itself immediate; it is true that being, too, is preserved in it and both are united in determinate being in a simple unity, but for that very reason they are in themselves still unequal to each other and their unity is not yet posited. Determinate being is therefore the sphere of difference, of dualism, the field of finitude. Determinateness is determinateness as such, in which being is only relatively, not absolutely determined. In being-for-self, the difference between being and determinateness or negation is posited and equalised; quality, otherness, limit — like reality, being-in-itself, the ought, and so on-are the imperfect embodiments of the negation in being in which the difference of both still lies at the base. Since, however, in finitude the negation has pa**ed into infinity, into the posited negation of negation, it is simple self-relation and consequently in its own self the equalisation with being, absolutely determined being. § 319 Being-for-self is first, immediately a being-for-self — the One. Secondly, the One pa**es into a plurality of ones — repulsion — and this otherness of the ones is sublated in their ideality — attraction. Thirdly, we have the alternating determination of repulsion and attraction in which they collapse into equilibrium, and quality, which in being-for-self reached its climax, pa**es over into quantity. A Being-for-self as Such (a) Determinate Being and Being-for-self (b) Being-for-one Remark: The German Expression, 'What For a Thing' (Meaning 'What Kind of a Thing') (c) The One B The One and the Many (a) The One in its own self (b) The One and the Void Remark: Atomism (c) Many Ones — Repulsion Remark: The Monad of Leibniz C Repulsion and Attraction (a) Exclusion of the One Remark: The unity of the One and the Many (b) The one One of Attraction (c) The Relation of Repulsion and Attraction Remark: The Kantian Construction of Matter from the Forces of Attraction and Repulsion § 373 Attraction and repulsion, as we know, are usually regarded as forces. This determination of them and — the relationships connected with it have to be compared with the Notions which have resulted from our consideration of them. Conceived as forces, they are regarded as self-subsistent and therefore as not connected with each other through their own nature; that is, they are considered not as moments, each of which is supposed to pa** into the other, but rather as fixed in their opposition to each other. Further, they are imagined as meeting in a third, in matter, but in such a manner, that this unification is, counted, as their truth., on the contrary; each is regarded also as a first, as being in and for itself, and matter, or its determinations, are supposed to be realised and produced by them. When it is said that matter has the forces within itself, they are understood to be so conjoined in this unity that they are at the same time presupposed as intrinsically free and independent of each other. § 374 Kant, as we know, constructed matter from the forces of attraction and repulsion, or at least he has, to use his own words, set up the metaphysical elements of this construction. It will not be without interest to examine this construction more closely. This metaphysical exposition of a subject matter which not only itself but also in its determinations seemed to belong only to experience is noteworthy, partly because as an experiment with the Notion it at least gave the impulse to the more recent philosophy of nature, to a philosophy which does not make nature as given in sense-perception the basis of science, but which goes to the absolute Notion for its determinations; and partly because in many cases no advance is made beyond the Kantian construction which is held to be a philosophical beginning and foundation for physics. § 375 Now it is true that matter as it exists for sense perception is no more a subject matter of logic than are space and its determinations. But the forces of attraction and repulsion, in so far as they are regarded as forces of empirical matter, are also based on the pure determinations here considered of the one and the many and their inter-relationships, which, because these names are most obvious, I have called repulsion and attraction. § 376 Kant's method in the deduction of matter from these forces, which he calls a construction, when looked at more closely does not deserve this name, unless any exercise of reflection, even an*lytical reflection, is to be called a construction; and later philosophers of nature have in fact given the name of construction to the shallowest reasoning and the most baseless concoction of unbridled imagination and thoughtless reflection — and it is especially for the so-called factors of attraction and repulsion that such philosophers have shown a predilection. § 377 For Kant's method is basically an*lytical, not constructive. He presupposes the idea of matter and then asks what forces are required to maintain the determinations he has presupposed. Thus, on the one hand, he demands the force of attraction because, properly speaking, through repulsion alone and without attraction matter could not exist; and on the other hand he derives repulsion, too, from matter and gives as the reason that we think of matter as impenetrable, since it presents itself under this category to the sense of touch by which it manifests itself to us. Consequently, he proceeds, repulsion is at once thought in the concept of matter because it is immediately given therein, whereas attraction is added to the concept syllogistically. But these syllogisms, too, are based on what has just been said, namely, that matter which possessed repulsive force alone, would not exhaust our conception of matter. It is evident that this is the method of a cognition which reflects on experience, which first perceives the determinations in a phenomenon, then makes these the foundation, and for their so-called explanation a**umes corresponding basic elements or forces which are supposed to produce those determinations of the phenomenon. § 378 With respect to this difference as to the way in which cognition finds the forces of repulsion and attraction in matter, Kant further remarks that the force of attraction certainly just as much belongs to the concept of matter 'although it is not contained in it'; this last expression is italicised by Kant. However, it is hard to perceive what this difference is supposed to be; for a determination which belongs to the concept of anything must be truly contained in it. § 379 What causes the difficulty and gives rise to this vain subterfuge, is that Kant from the start one-sidedly attributes to the concept of matter only the determination of impenetrability, which we are supposed to perceive by the sense of touch, for which reason the force of repulsion as the holding off of an other from itself is immediately given. But if, further, the existence of matter is supposed to be impossible without attraction, then this a**ertion is based on a conception of matter taken from sense perception; consequently, the determination of attraction, too, must come within the range of sense perception. It is indeed easy to perceive that matter, besides its being-for-self, which sublates the being-for-other (offers resistance), has also a relation between its self-determined parts, a spatial extension and cohesion, and in rigidity and solidity the cohesion is very firm. Physics explains that the tearing apart, etc., of a body requires a force which shall be stronger than the mutual attraction of the parts of the body. From this observation reflection can just as directly derive the force of attraction or a**ume it as given, as it did with the force of repulsion. In point of fact, if we consider Kant's arguments from which the force of attraction is supposed to be deduced (the proof of the proposition that the possibility of matter requires a force of attraction as a second fundamental force, loc. cit.), it is apparent that their sole content is this, that through repulsion alone matter would not be spatial Matter being presupposed as filling space, it is credited with continuity, the ground of which is a**umed to be the force of attraction. § 380 Now if the merit of such a construction of matter were at most that of an an*lysis (though a merit diminished by the faulty exposition), still the fundamental thought, namely, the derivation of matter from these two opposite determinations as its fundamental forces, must always be highly esteemed. Kant is chiefly concerned to banish the vulgar mechanistic way of thinking which stops short at the one determination of impenetrability, of self-determined and self-subsistent puncticity, and converts into something external the opposite determination, the relation of matter within itself or the relation of a plurality of matters, which in turn are regarded as particular ones — a way of thinking which, as Kant says, will admit no motive forces except pressure and thrust, that is, only action from without. This external manner of thinking always presupposes motion as already externally present in matter, and it does not occur to it to regard motion as something immanent and to comprehend motion itself in matter, which latter is thus a**umed as, on its own account, motionless and inert. This stand-point has before it only ordinary mechanics, not immanent and free motion. It is true that Kant sublates this externality in so far as he makes attraction (the relation of matters to one another in so far as these are a**umed as separated from one another, or matter generally in its self-externality) a force of matter itself; still, on the other hand, his two fundamental forces within matter remain external to and completely independent of each other. § 381 The fixed difference of these two forces attributed to them from that external standpoint is no less null than any other distinction must show itself to be which, in respect of its specific content, is made into something supposedly fixed; because these forces are only moments which pa** over into each other, as we saw above when they were considered in their truth. I go on to consider these other distinctions as they are stated by Kant. § 382 He defines the force of attraction as a penetrative force by which one bit of matter can act directly on the parts of another even beyond the area of contact; the force of repulsion, on the other hand, he defines as a surface force through which bits of matter can act on each other only in the common area of contact. The reason adduced that the latter can be only a surface force is as follows: ‘The parts in contact each limit the sphere of action of the other, and the force of repulsion cannot move any more distant part except through the agency of the intervening parts; an immediate action of one part of matter on another pa**ing right across these intervening parts by forces of expansion (which means here, forces of repulsion) is impossible.' § 383 But here we must remember that in a**uming 'nearer' or 'more distant' parts of matter, the same distinction would likewise arise with respect to attraction, namely, that though one atom acted on another, yet a third, more distant atom (between which and the first atom, the second atom would be), would first enter into the sphere of attraction of the intervening atom nearer to it; therefore the first atom would not have an immediate, simple action on the third, from which it would follow that the action of the force of attraction, like that of repulsion, is equally mediated. Further, the genuine penetration of the force of attraction could of necessity consist only in this, that every part of matter was in and for itself attractive, not that a certain number of atoms behaved pa**ively and only one atom actively. But we must at once remark with respect to the force of repulsion itself that in the pa**age quoted, 'parts in contact' are mentioned which implies solidity and continuity of a matter already finished and complete which would not permit the pa**age through it of a repelling force. But this solidity of matter in which parts are in contact and are no longer separated by the void already presupposes that the force of repulsion is sublated; according to the sensuous conception of repulsion which prevails here, parts in contact are to be taken as those which do not repel each other. It therefore follows, quite tautologically, that where repulsion is a**umed to be not, there no repulsion can take place. But from this nothing else follows which could serve to determine the force of repulsion. However, reflection on the statement that parts in contact are in contact only in so far as they hold themselves apart, leads directly to the conclusion that the force of repulsion is not merely on the surface of matter but within the sphere which was supposed to be only a sphere of attraction. § 384 Kant a**umes further that 'through the force of attraction, matter only occupies space but does not fill it'; and 'because matter through the force of attraction does not fill space, this force can act across empty space since there is no intervening matter to limit it'. This distinction is much the same as the one mentioned above where a determination was supposed to belong to the concept of a thing but not to be contained in it; here, then, matter is supposed only to occupy a space but not to fill it. There it is repulsion, if we stop at the first determination of matter, through which the ones repel one another and so are only negatively related to one another, here that means, by empty space. Here, however, it is the force of attraction which keeps space empty; it does not fill space by its connection of the atoms, in other words, it keeps the atoms in a negative relation to one another. We see that Kant here unconsciously realises what is implicit in the nature of the subject matter, when he attributes to the force of attraction precisely what, in accordance with the first determination, he attributed to the opposite force. While he was busy with establishing the difference between the two forces, it happened that one had pa**ed over into the other. Thus through repulsion, on the other hand, matter is supposed to fill a space, and consequently through repulsion the empty space left by the force of attraction vanishes. In point of fact repulsion, in doing away with empty space, also destroys the negative relation of the atoms or ones, that is, their repulsion of one another; in -other words, repulsion is determined as the opposite of itself. § 385 To this effacing of the differences there is added the confusion arising from the fact that, as we observed at the beginning, Kant's exposition of the opposed forces is an*lytic; and whereas matter is supposed to be derived from its elements, it is presented throughout the entire discourse as already formed and constituted. In the definition of surface and penetrative force both are a**umed as motive forces by means of which matter is supposed to be able to act in one or other of these ways. Here, therefore, they are represented as forces, not through which matter first comes into being but through which matter, as an already finished product, is only set in motion. But in so far as we are speaking of the forces through which different bodies act on one another and are set in motion, this is something quite different from the determination and relation which these forces were supposed to have as [constitutive] moments of matter. § 386 The same opposition of attractive and repulsive forces is made by their more developed form of centripetal and centrifugal forces. These appear to offer an essential distinction, since in their sphere there is a fixed single one, a centre, in relation to which the other ones behave as not for themselves, so that the difference between the forces can be linked to this presupposed difference between a single central one and the others which are not independent relatively to it. But if they are to be used for explanation — for which purpose they are a**umed to be (like the forces of repulsion and attraction) in an inverse quantitative ratio so that the one increases as the other decreases — then the phenomenon of the motion and its inequality ought to be the result of these forces which were a**umed for the purpose of explanation. However, one need only examine the accounts (any of them will do) of a phenomenon like the unequal velocity of a planet in its orbit round the sun, based on the opposition of these forces, to become aware of the confusion which prevails in such explanations, and the impossibility of disentangling the magnitudes of the forces, so that the one which in the explanation is a**umed to be decreasing can just as well be a**umed to be increasing, and vice versa. To make this evident would require a lengthier exposition than could be given here; but what is necessary for this purpose is adduced later on in connection with the inverted relation.