Chapter XXVII: Introduction: To the Outlines of a System of Natural Philosophy; (2)

That which is everywhere and in everything, is, for that very reason, nowhere.—Productivity is fixed only by limitation.—_Electricity exists_ only at that point at which limits are given, and it is only a poverty of conception that would look for anything else in its phenomena beyond the phenomena of (limited) productivity.—The condition of _light_ is an antithesis in the electric and galvanic, as well as in the chemical, process, and even light which comes to us without our coöperation (the phenomenon of productivity exerted all round by the sun) presupposes that antithesis.[22]

(δ) _It is only limited productivity that gives the start to product._ (The explanation of product must begin at the origination of the fixed point at which the start is made.) _The condition of all formation is duality._ (This is the more profound signification that lies in Kant’s construction of matter from opposite forces.)

Electrical phenomena are the general scheme for the construction of matter universally.

(ε) _In Nature, neither pure productivity nor pure product can ever be arrived at._

The former is the negation of all product, the latter the negation of all productivity.

(Approximation to the former is the absolutely decomposible, to the latter the absolutely indecomposible, of the atomistics. The former cannot be thought without, at the same time, being the absolutely incomposible, the latter without, at the same time, being the absolutely composible.)

Nature will therefore originally be the middle [somewhat] arising out of the two, and thus we arrive at the idea of _a productivity engaged in a transition into product, or of a product that is productive ad infinitum_. We hold to the latter definition.

The idea of the product (the fixed) and that of the productive (the free) are mutually opposed.

Seeing that what we have postulated is already product, it can, if it is productive at all, be productive only in a _determinate way_. But determined productivity is (active) _formation_. That third [somewhat] must therefore be _in the state of formation_.

But the product is supposed to be productive _ad infinitum_ (that transition is never absolutely to take place); it will therefore at every stage be productive in a determinate way; the productivity will remain, but not the product.

(The question might arise how a transition from form to form is possible at all here, when _no_ form is fixed. Still, that _momentary_ forms should be reached, has already been rendered possible by the fact that the evolution cannot take place with infinite rapidity, in which case, therefore, for every step at least, the form is certainly a determinate one.)

The product will appear as in _infinite metamorphosis_.

(From the stand-point of reflection, as continually on the leap from fluid to solid, without ever reaching, however, the required form.—Organizations that do not live in the grosser element, at least live on the deep ground of the aërial sea—many pass over, by metamorphoses, from one element into another; and what does the animal, whose vital functions almost all consist in contractions, appear to be, other than such a leap?)

The metamorphosis will not possibly take place _without rule_. For it must remain within the original antithesis, and is thereby confined within limits.[23]

This accordance with rule will express itself solely by an internal relationship of forms—a relationship which again is not thinkable without an archetype which lies at the basis of all, and which, with however manifold divergences, they nevertheless all express.

But even with such a product, we have not that which we were in quest of—a product which, while productive _ad infinitum_, remains _the same_. That this product should remain the same seems unthinkable, because it is not thinkable without an absolute checking or suppression of the productivity.—The product would have to be checked, as the productivity was checked, for it is still productive—checked by dualization and limitation resulting therefrom. But it must at the same time be explained how the productive product can be checked at each individual stage of its formation, without its ceasing to be productive, or how, _by dualization itself the permanence of the productivity is secured_.

In this way we have brought the reader as far as the problem of the fourth section of the Outlines, and we leave him to find in it for himself the solution along with the corollaries which it brings up.—Meanwhile, we shall endeavor to indicate how the deduced product would necessarily appear from the stand-point of _reflection_.

The product is the synthesis wherein the opposite extremes meet, which on the one side are designated by the absolutely decomposible—on the other as indecomposible.—How continuity comes into the absolute discontinuity with which he sets out, the atomic philosopher endeavors to explain by means of cohesive, plastic power, &c., &c. In vain, for continuity is only _productivity_ itself.

The manifoldness of the forms which such product assumes in its metamorphosis was explained by the difference in the stages of development, so that, parallel with every step of development, goes a particular form. The atomic philosopher posits in nature certain fundamental forms, and as in it everything strives after form, and every thing which does form itself has also its _particular_ form, so the fundamental forms must be conceded, but certainly only as indicated in nature, not as actually existent.

From the standpoint of reflection, the becoming of this product must appear as a continual striving of the original actions toward the production of a determinate form, and a continual recancelling of those forms.

Thus, the product would not be product of a simple tendency; it would be only the visible expression of an internal proportion, of an internal equipoise of the original actions, which neither reduce themselves mutually to absolute formlessness, nor yet, by reason of the universal conflict, allow the production of a determinate and fixed form.

Hitherto (so long as we have had to deal merely with ideal factors), there have been opposite directions of investigation possible; from this point, inasmuch as we have to pursue a real product in its developments, there is only one direction.

(η) By the unavoidable separation of productivity into opposite directions at every single step of development the product itself is separated into _individual products_, by which, however, for that very reason, only different stages of development are marked.

That this is so may be shown _either_ in the products themselves, as is done when we compare them with each other with regard to their form, and search out a continuity of formation—an idea which, from the fact that continuity is never in the _products_ (for the reflection), but always only in the _productivity_, can never be perfectly realized.

In order to find continuity in productivity, the successive steps of the _transition of productivity into product_ must be more clearly exhibited than they have hitherto been. From the fact that the productivity gets _limited_, (_v. supra_,) we have in the first instance only the start for a product, only the fixed point for the productivity generally. It must be shown _how_ the productivity gradually materializes itself, and changes itself into products ever more and more fixed, so as to produce a _dynamical scale in nature_, and this is the real subject of the fundamental problem of the whole system.

In advance, the following may serve to throw light on the subject. In the first place, a dualization of the productivity is demanded; the cause through which this dualization is effected remains in the first instance altogether outside of the investigation. By dualization a change of contraction and expansion is perhaps conditioned. This change is not something in matter, but is _matter itself_, and the first stage of productivity passing over into product. _Product_ cannot be reached except through a stoppage of this change, that is, through a third [somewhat] which _fixes_ that change itself, and thus matter in its lowest stage—in the _first_ power—would be an object of intuition; that change would be seen in rest, or in equipoise, just as, conversely again, by the suppression of the third [somewhat] matter might be raised to a higher power. Now it might be possible that those products just deduced stood upon _quite different degrees_ of materiality, or of _that transition_, or that those different degrees were more or less _distinguishable_ in the one than in the other; that is, a dynamical scale of those products would thereby have to be demonstrated.

(_o_) In the _solution_ of the problem itself, we shall continue, in the first instance, in the direction hitherto taken, without knowing where it may lead us.

There are individual products brought into nature; but in these products productivity, _as_ productivity, is held to be still always distinguishable. Productivity has not yet absolutely passed over into product. The subsistence of the product is supposed to be a continual self-reproduction.

The problem arises: By what is this absolute transition—exhaustion of the productivity in the product—prevented? or by what does its subsistence become a continual self-reproduction?

It is absolutely unthinkable how the activity that everywhere tends towards a product is prevented from going over into it _entirely_, unless that transition is prevented _by external influences_, and the product, if it is to subsist, is compelled at every step to reproduce itself _anew_.

Up to this point, however, no trace has been discovered of a cause opposed to the product (to organic nature). Such a cause can, therefore, at present, only be postulated. We thought we saw the whole of nature exhaust itself in that product, and it is only here that we remark, that in order to comprehend such product, _something else_ must be presupposed, and a new antithesis must come into nature.

Nature has hitherto been for us absolute _identity_ in duplicity; here we come upon an antithesis that must again take place _within_ the other. This antithesis must be capable of being shown in the deduced product itself, if it is capable of being deduced at all.

The deduced product is an activity _directed outwards_; this cannot be distinguished as such without an activity _directed inwards from without_, (i. e. directed upon itself,) and this activity, on the other hand, cannot be thought, unless it is _pressed back_ (reflected) from without.

_In the opposite directions, which arise through this antithesis lies the principle for the construction of all the phenomena of life_—on the suppression of those opposite directions, life remains over, either as _absolute activity_ or _absolute receptivity_, since it is possible only as the perfect _inter-determination_ of receptivity and activity.

We therefore refer the reader to the Outlines themselves, and merely call his attention to the higher stage of construction which we have here reached.

We have above (_g_) explained the origin of a _product generally_ by a struggle of nature against the original point of check, whereby this point is raised to a full sphere, and thus receives permanence. Here, since we are deducing a struggle of _external_ nature, not against a mere point, but against a _product_, the first construction rises for us to a _second_ power, as it were,—we have a double product, and thus it might well be shown in the sequel that organic nature generally is only the higher power of the inorganic, and that it rises above the latter for the very reason that in it even that which was already product _again_ becomes product.

Since the product, which we have deduced as the most primary, drives us to a side of nature that is opposed to it, it is clear that our construction of the origin of a product generally is _incomplete_, and that we have not yet, by a long way, satisfied our problem; (the problem of all science is to construct the origin of a fixed product.)

A productive product, as such, can subsist only under the influence of external forces, because it is only thereby that productivity is interrupted—prevented from being extinguished in the product. For these external forces there must now again be a particular sphere; those forces must lie in a world which is _not productive_. But that world, for this very reason, would be a world fixed and undetermined in every respect. The problem—how a product in nature is arrived at—has therefore received a one-sided solution by all that has preceded. “The product is checked by dualization of the productivity at every single step of development.” But this is true only for the _productive_ product, whereas we are here treating of a _non-productive_ product.

The contradiction which meets us here can be solved only by the finding of a _general_ expression for the construction of a _product generally_, (regardless of whether it is productive or has ceased to be so).

* * * * *

Since the existence of a world, that is _not productive_ (inorganic) is in the first instance merely postulated, in order to explain the productive one, so its conditions can be laid down only hypothetically, and as we do not in the first instance know it at all except from its opposition to the productive, those conditions likewise must be deduced only from this opposition. From this it is of course clear,—what is also referred to in the Outlines—that this second section, as well as the first, contains throughout merely hypothetical truth, since neither organic nor inorganic nature is explained without our having reduced the construction of the two to a common expression, which, however, is possible only through the synthetic part.—This must lead to the highest and most general principles for the construction of a _nature_ generally; hence we must refer the reader who is concerned about a knowledge of our system altogether to that part. The hypothetical deduction of an inorganic world and its conditions we may pass over here all the more readily, that they are sufficiently detailed in the Outlines, and hasten to the most general and the highest problem of our science.

* * * * *

The most general problem of speculative physics may now be expressed thus: _To reduce the construction of organic and inorganic products to a common expression_.

We can state only the main principles of such a solution, and of these, for the most part, only such as have not been completely educed in the Outlines themselves—(3d principal section.)

A.

Here at the very beginning we lay down the principle that _as the organic product is the product in the second power, the_ ORGANIC _construction of the product_ must be, _at least, the sensuous image of the_ ORIGINAL _construction of all product_.

(_a_) In order that the productivity may be at all fixed at a point, _limits must be given_. Since _limits_ are the condition of the first phenomenon, the cause whereby limits are produced _cannot be a phenomenon_, it goes back into the interior of nature, or of each respective product.

In organic nature, this limitation of productivity is shown by what we call sensibility, which must be thought as the first condition of the construction of the organic product.

(_b_) The immediate effect of confined productivity is a _change of contraction and expansion_ in the matter already given, and as we now know, constructed, as it were, for the second time.

(_c_) Where this change stops, productivity passes over into product, and where it is again restored, product passes over into productivity. For since the product must remain productive _ad infinitum_, _those three stages of productivity_ must be _capable of being_ DISTINGUISHED in the product; the absolute transition of the latter into product is the cancelling of product itself.

(_d_) As these three stages are distinguishable in the _individual_, so they must be distinguishable in _organic nature throughout_, and the scale of organizations is nothing more than a scale of _productivity itself_. (Productivity exhausts itself to degree _c_ in the product _A_, and can begin with the product _B_ only at the point where it left off with _A_, that is, with degree _d_, and so on downwards to the _vanishing_ of all productivity. If we knew the absolute _degree_ of productivity of the _earth_ for example—a degree which is determined by the earth’s relation to the sun—the limit of organization upon it might be thereby more accurately determined than by incomplete experience—which must be incomplete for this reason, if for no other, that the catastrophes of nature have, beyond doubt, swallowed the last links of the chain. A true system of Natural History, which has for its object not the _products_ [of nature] but _nature itself_, follows up the one productivity that battles, so to speak, against freedom, through all its windings and turnings, to the point at which it is at last compelled to perish in the product.)

It is upon this dynamical scale, in the individual, as well as in the whole of organic nature, that the construction of all organic phenomena rests.

B.[24]

These principles, stated universally, lead to the following fundamental principles of a universal theory of nature.

(_a_) Productivity must be _primarily_ limited. Since _outside_ of limited productivity there is [only] _pure identity_ the limitation cannot be established by a difference already existing, and therefore must be so by an _opposition_ arising in _productivity itself_—an opposition to which we here revert as a first postulate.[25]

(_b_) This difference thought _purely_ is the first condition of all [natural] activity, the productivity is attracted and repelled[26] between opposites (the primary limits); in this change of expansion and contraction there arises necessarily a common element, but one which exists only _in change_. If it is to exist _outside_ of change, then the _change itself_ must become fixed. The _active_ in change is the productivity sundered within itself.

(_c_) It is asked:

(α) By what means such change can be fixed at all; it cannot be fixed by anything that is contained as a link in change itself, and must therefore be fixed by a _tertium quid_.

(β) But this _tertium quid_ must be able to _invade_ that original antithesis; but _outside_ of that antithesis nothing _is_[27]; it (that _tertium quid_) must therefore be primarily contained in it, as something which is mediated by the antithesis, and by which in turn the antithesis is mediated; for otherwise there is no ground why it should be primarily contained in that antithesis.

The antithesis is dissolution of identity. But nature is _primarily_ identity. _In_ that antithesis, therefore, there must again be a struggle after identity. This struggle is immediately conditioned _through_ the antithesis; for if there was no antithesis, there would be identity, absolute rest, and therefore no _struggle_ toward identity. If, on the other hand, there were not identity in the antithesis, the antithesis itself could not endure.

Identity produced out of difference is indifference; that _tertium quid_ is therefore a _struggle towards indifference_—a struggle which is conditioned, by the difference itself, and by which it, on the other hand, is conditioned.—(The difference must not be looked upon as a difference at all, and is nothing for the intuition, except through a third, which sustains it—to which change itself adheres.)

This _tertium quid_, therefore, is all that is substrate in that primal change. But substrate posits change as much as change posits substrate; and there is here no first and no second; but difference and struggle towards indifference, are, as far time is concerned, one and contemporary.

_Axiom._ No identity in Nature is absolute, but all is only indifference.

Since that _tertium quid_ itself _presupposes_ the primary antithesis, the antithesis itself cannot be _absolutely_ removed by it; _the condition of the continuance of that tertium quid_ [of that third activity, or of Nature] _is the perpetual continuance of the antithesis_, just as, conversely, _the continuance of the antithesis is conditioned by the continuance of the tertium quid_.

But how, then, shall the antithesis be thought as continuing?

We have one primary antithesis, between the limits of which all Nature must lie; if we assume that the factors of this antithesis can really pass over into each other, or go together absolutely in some _tertium quid_ (some individual product), then the antithesis is removed, and along with it the _struggle_, and so all the activity of nature. But that the antithesis should endure, is thinkable only by its being _infinite_—by the extreme limits being held asunder _in infinitum_—_so that always only the mediating links of the synthesis, never the last and absolute synthesis itself, can be produced_, in which case it is only _relative points of indifference_ that are always attained, never absolute ones, and every successively originated difference leaves behind a new and still unremoved antithesis, and this again goes over into indifference, which, in its turn, _partially_ removes the primary antithesis. Through the original antithesis and the struggle towards indifference, there arises a product, but the product partially does away with the antithesis; through the doing away of that part—that is, through the origination of the product itself—there arises a new antithesis, different from the one that has been done away with, and through it, a product different from the first; but even this leaves the absolute antithesis unremoved, duality therefore, and through it a product, will arise anew, and so on to infinity.

Let us say, for example, that by the product _A_, the antitheses _c_ and _d_ are united, the antitheses _b_ and _e_ still lie outside of that union. This latter is done away with in _B_, but this product also leaves the antithesis _a_ and _f_ unremoved; if we say that _a_ and _f_ mark the extreme limits, then the union of these will be that product which can never be arrived at.

Between the extremes _a_ and _f_, lie the antitheses _c_ and _d_, _b_ and _e_; but the series of these intermediate antitheses is infinite; all these intermediate antitheses are included in the one absolute antithesis.—In the product _A_, of _a_ only _c_, and of _f_ only _d_ is removed; let what remains of _a_ be called _b_, and of _f_, _e_; these will indeed, by virtue of the absolute struggle towards indifference, become again united, but they leave a new antithesis uncancelled, and so there remains between _a_ and _f_ an infinite series of intermediate antitheses, and the product in which those absolutely cancel themselves never _is_, but only _becomes_.

This infinitely progressive formation must be thus represented. The original antithesis would necessarily be cancelled in the primal product _A_. The product would necessarily fall at the indifference-point of _a_ and _f_, but inasmuch as the antithesis is an absolute one, which can be cancelled only in an infinitely continued, never actual, synthesis, _A_ must be thought as the centre of an infinite periphery, (whose diameter is the infinite line _a f_.) Since in the product of _a_ and _f_, only _c_ and _d_ are united, there arises in it the new division _b_ and _e_, the product will therefore divide up into opposite directions; at the point where the struggle towards indifference attains the preponderance, _b_ and _e_ will combine and form a new product different from the first—but between _a_ and _f_, there still lie an infinite number of antitheses; the indifference-point _B_ is therefore the centre of a periphery which is comprehended in the first, but is itself again infinite, and so on.

The antithesis of _b_ and _e_ in _B_ is _maintained_ through _A_, because it (_A_) leaves the antithesis _un-united_; in like manner the antithesis in _C_ is _maintained_ through _B_, because _B_, in its turn, cancels only a part of _a_ and _f_. But the antithesis in _C_ is maintained through _B_, only in so far as _A_ maintains the antithesis in _B_.[28] What therefore in _C_ and _B_ results _from_ this antithesis—[suppose, for example, the result of it were universal gravitation]—is _occasioned_ by the common influence of _A_, so that _B_ and _C_, and the infinite number of other products that come, as intermediate links between _a_ and _f_, are, in relation to _A_, only _one_ product.—The _difference_, which remains over in _A_ after the union of _c_ and _d_, is only _one_, into which then _B_, _C_, &c., again divide.

But the continuance of the antithesis is, in the case of every product, the condition of the struggle towards indifference, and thus a struggle towards indifference is maintained through _A_ in _B_, and through _B_ in _C_.—But the antithesis which _A_ leaves uncancelled, is only one, and therefore also this tendency in _B_, in _C_, and so on to infinity, is only conditioned and maintained through _A_.

The organization thus determined is no other than the organization of the Universe in the system of gravitation.—_Gravity_ is _simple_, but its _condition_ is duplicity.—Indifference arises only out of difference.—The cancelled duality is matter, inasmuch as it is only mass.

The _absolute_ indifference-point exists nowhere, but is, as it were, divided among several _single_ points.—The Universe which forms itself from the centre towards the periphery, _seeks_ the point at which even the extreme antitheses of nature cancel themselves; the impossibility of this cancelling guarantees the infinity of the Universe.

From every product _A_, the uncancelled antithesis is carried over to a new one, _B_, the former thereby becoming the cause of duality and gravitation for _B_.—(This carrying over is what is called action by distribution, the theory of which receives light only at this point.[29])—Thus, for example, the sun, being only _relative_ indifference, maintains, as far as its sphere of action reaches, the antithesis, which is the condition of weight upon the subordinate world-bodies.[30]

The indifference is cancelled at every step, and at every step it is restored. Hence, weight acts upon a body at rest as well as upon one in motion.—The universal restoration of duality, and its recancelling at every step, can [that is] appear only as a _nisus_ against a third (somewhat). This third (somewhat) is therefore the pure zero—abstracted from tendency it is nothing [= 0], therefore purely ideal, (marking only direction)—a _point_.[31] Gravity [the centre of gravity] is in the case of every total product only _one_ [for the antithesis is one], and so also the relative indifference-point is only _one_. The indifference-point of the _individual_ body marks only the line of direction of its tendency towards the universal indifference-point; hence this point may be regarded as the only one at which gravity acts; just as that, whereby bodies alone attain consistence for us, is simply this tendency outwards.[32]

Vertical falling towards this point is not a simple, but a compound motion, and it is a subject for wonder that this has not been perceived before.[33]

Gravity is not proportional to mass (for what is this mass but an abstraction of the specific gravity which you have hypostatized?); but, conversely, the mass of a body is only the expression of the momentum, with which the antithesis in it cancels itself.

(_d_) By the foregoing, the construction of matter in general is completed, but not the construction of specific difference in matter.

That which all the matter of _B_, _C_, &c., in relation to _A_ has _common_ under it, is the difference which is not cancelled by _A_, and which again cancels itself _in part_ in _B_ and _C_—hence, therefore, the gravity mediated by that difference.

What _distinguishes B_ and _C_ from _A_ therefore, is the difference which is not cancelled by _A_, and which becomes the condition of gravity in the case of _B_ and _C_.—Similarly, what distinguishes _C_ from _B_ (if _C_ is a product subordinate to _B_), is the difference which is not cancelled by _B_, and which is again carried over to _C_. Gravity, therefore, is not the same thing for the higher and for the subaltern world-bodies, and there is as much variety in the central forces as in the conditions of attraction.

The means whereby, in the products _A_, _B_, _C_, which, in so far as they are opposed to _each other_, represent products absolutely _homogeneous_ [because the antithesis is the same for the _whole product_,] another difference of individual products is possible, is the possibility of a difference of relation between the factors in the cancelling, so that, for example, in _X_, the positive factor, and in _Y_, the negative factor, has the preponderance, (thus rendering the one body positively, and the other negatively, electric).—All difference is difference of electricity.[34]

(_e_) That the identity of matter is not _absolute_ identity, but only _indifference_, can be proved from the possibility of again cancelling the identity, and from the accompanying phenomena.[35] We may be allowed, for brevity’s sake, to include this recancelling, and its resultant phenomena under the expression _dynamical process_, without, of course, affirming decisively whether anything of the sort is everywhere actual.

_Now there will be exactly as many stages in the dynamical process as there are stages of transition from difference to indifference._

(α) The first stage will be marked by objects _in which the reproduction and recancelling of the antithesis at every step is still itself an object of perception_.

The whole product is reproduced anew at every step,[36] that is, the antithesis which cancels itself in it, springs up afresh every moment; but this reproduction of difference loses itself immediately in _universal_ gravity;[37] this reproduction, therefore, can be perceived only in _individual_ objects, which seem to gravitate _towards each other_; since, if to the one factor of an antithesis is offered its opposite (in another) _both factors_ become _heavy with reference to each other_, in which case, therefore, the general gravity is not cancelled, but a special one occurs _within_ the general.—An instance of such a mutual relation between two products, is that of the earth and the magnetic needle, in which is distinguished the continual recancelling of indifference in gravitation towards the poles[38]—the continual sinking back into identity[39] in gravitation towards the universal indifference-point. Here, therefore, it is not the _object_, but the _being-reproduced of the object_ that becomes object.[40]

(β) At the first stage, _in_ the identity of the product, its duplicity again appears; at the second, the antithesis will divide up and distribute itself among different objects (_A_ and _B_). From the fact that the one factor of the antithesis attained a _relative_ preponderance in _A_, the other in _B_, there will arise, according to the same law as in α, a _gravitation_ of the factors toward each other, and so a new difference, which, when the relative equiponderance is restored in each, results in repulsion[41]—(change of attraction and repulsion, _second_ stage in which matter is seen)—_electricity_.

(γ) At the second stage the one factor of the product had only a _relative_ preponderance;[42] at the _third_ it will attain an _absolute_ one—by the two bodies _A_ and _B_, the original antithesis is again completely represented—matter will revert to the _first stage_ of becoming.

At the _first stage_ there is still PURE _difference_, without substrate [for it was only out of it that a substrate arose]; at the second stage it is the _simple_ factors of two _products_ that are opposed to each other; at the third it is the PRODUCTS THEMSELVES that are opposed; here is difference in the _third_ power.

If two products are absolutely opposed to each other,[43] then in each of them singly indifference of gravity (by which alone each _is_) must be _cancelled_, and they must gravitate to _each other_.[44] (In the second stage there was only a mutual gravitating of the factors to each other—here there is a gravitating of the products.)[45]—This process, therefore, first assails the _indifferent (element) of the_ PRODUCT—that is, the products themselves dissolve.

Where there is equal difference there is equal indifference; difference of _products_, therefore, can end only with _indifference of products_.—(All hitherto deduced indifference has been only indifference of substrateless, or at least simple factors.—Now we come to speak of an indifference of products.) This struggle will not cease till there exists a common product. The product, in forming itself, passes, from both sides, through all the intermediate links that lie between the two products [for example, through all the intermediate stages of specific gravity], till it finds the point at which it succumbs to indifference, and the product is fixed.

GENERAL REMARK.

By virtue of the first construction, the product is posited as identity; this identity, it is true, again resolves itself into an antithesis, which, however, is no longer an antithesis cleaving to _products_, but an antithesis in the _productivity_ itself.—The product, therefore, _as_ product, is identity.—But even in the sphere of products, there again arises a duplicity in the second stage, and it is only in the third that even the duplicity of the _products_ again becomes _identity_ of the products.[46]—There is therefore here also a progress from thesis to antithesis, and thence to synthesis.—The last synthesis of matter closes in the chemical process; if composition is to proceed yet further in it, then this circle must open again.

We must leave it to our readers themselves to make out the conclusions to which the principles here stated lead, and the universal interdependence which is introduced by them into the phenomena of Nature.—Nevertheless, to give one instance: when in the chemical process the bond of gravity is loosed, the phenomenon of _light_ which accompanies the chemical process in its greatest perfection (in the process of combustion), is a remarkable phenomenon, which, when followed out further, confirms what is stated in the Outlines, page 146:—“The action of light must stand in secret interdependence with the action of gravity which the central bodies exercise.”—For, is not the indifference dissolved at every step, since gravity, as ever active, presupposes a continual cancelling of indifference?—It is thus, therefore, that the sun, by the distribution exercised on the earth, causes a universal separation of matter into the primary antithesis (and hence gravity). This universal cancelling of indifference is what appears to us (who are endowed with life) as _light_; wherever, therefore, that indifference is dissolved (in the chemical process), there light _must_ appear to us. According to the foregoing, it is _one_ antithesis which, beginning at magnetism, and proceeding through electricity, at last loses itself in the chemical phenomena.[47] In the chemical process, namely, _the whole product_ + _E_ or - _E_ (the _positively_ electric body, in the case of absolutely _unburnt_ bodies, is always the _more combustible_;[48] whereas the _absolutely incombustible_ is the cause of all _negatively_ electric condition;) and if we may be allowed to invert the case, what then are bodies themselves but condensed (confined) electricity? In the chemical process the whole body dissolves into + _E_ or - _E_. Light is everywhere the appearing of the _positive_ factor in the primary antithesis; hence, wherever the antithesis is restored, there is _light_ for us, because generally only the positive factor is beheld, and the negative one is only felt.—Is the connection of the diurnal and annual deviations of the magnetic needle with light now conceivable—and, if in every chemical process the antithesis is dissolved, is it conceivable that Light is the cause and beginning of all chemical process?[49]

(_f_) The dynamical process is nothing but the second construction of matter, and however many stages there are in the dynamical process, there are the same number in the original construction of matter. This axiom is the converse of axiom _e_.[50] That which, in the dynamical process is perceived in the product, takes place _outside_ of the product with the simple factors of all duality.

The first start to original production is the limitation of productivity through the primitive antithesis, which, _as_ antithesis (and as the condition of all construction), is distinguished only in _magnetism_; the second stage of production is the _change_ of contraction and expansion, and as such becomes visible only in _electricity_; finally, the third stage is the transition of this change into indifference—a change which is recognized as such only in _chemical_ phenomena.

MAGNETISM, ELECTRICITY AND CHEMICAL PROCESS are the _categories_ of the original construction of nature [matter]—the latter escapes us and lies outside of intuition, the former are what of it remains behind, what stands firm, what is fixed—the general schemes for the construction of matter.[51]

And—in order to close the circle at the point where it began—just as in organic nature, in the scale of sensibility, irritability, and formative instinct, the secret of the production of the _whole of organic nature_ lies in each individual, so in the scale of magnetism, electricity, and chemical process, so far as it (the scale) can be distinguished in the individual body, is to be found the secret of the production of _Nature from itself_ [of the whole of Nature[52]].

C.

We have now approached nearer the solution of our problem, which was: To reduce the construction of organic and inorganic nature to a common expression.

Inorganic nature is the product of the _first_ power, organic nature of the _second_[53]—(this was demonstrated above; it will soon appear that the latter is the product of a still higher power)—hence the latter, in view of the former, appears contingent; the former, in view of the latter, necessary. Inorganic nature can take its origin from _simple_ factors, organic nature only from products, which again become factors. Hence an inorganic nature generally will appear as having been from all eternity, the organic nature as _originated_.

In the organic nature, indifference can never be arrived at in the same way in which it is arrived at in inorganic nature, because life consists in nothing more than a continual _prevention of the attainment of indifference_ [a prevention of the absolute transition of productivity into product] whereby manifestly there comes about only a condition which is, so to speak, extorted from Nature.

By organization, matter—which has already been composed for the second time by the chemical process—is once more thrown back to the initial point of formation (the circle above described is again opened); it is no wonder that matter always thrown back again into formation at last returns as a perfect product.

The same stages, through which the production of Nature originally passes, are also passed through by the production of the organic product; only that the latter, even _in the first stage_, at least begins with products of the _simple_ power.—Organic production also begins with limitation, not of the _primary_ productivity, but of the _productivity of a product_; organic formation also takes place through the change of expansion and contraction, just as primary formation does; but in this case it is a change taking place, not in the simple productivity, but in the compound.

But there is all this, too, in the chemical process,[54] and yet in the chemical process indifference is attained. The vital process, therefore, must again be a higher power of the chemical; and if the scheme that lies at the base of the latter is duplicity, the scheme of the former will of necessity be _triplicity_ [the former will be a process of the third power]. But the scheme of triplicity is [in reality] that [the fundamental scheme] of the galvanic process (Ritter’s _Demonstration_, &c., p. 172); therefore the galvanic process (or the process of irritation) stands a power higher than the chemical, and the third element, which the latter lacks and the former has, prevents indifference from being arrived at in the organic product.[55]

As irritation does not allow indifference to be arrived at in the individual product, and as the antithesis is still there (for the primary antithesis still pursues us),[56] there remains for nature no alternative but separation of the factors in _different_ products.[57] The formation of the individual product, for that very reason, cannot be a completed formation, and the product can never cease to be productive.[58] The contradiction in Nature is this, that the product must be _productive_ [i. e. a product of the third power], and that, notwithstanding, the product, _as_ a product of the third power, must pass over into indifference.[59]

This contradiction Nature tries to solve by mediating _indifference_ itself through _productivity_, but even this does not succeed—for the act of productivity is only the kindling spark of a new process of irritation; the product of productivity is a _new productivity_. Into this as its product the productivity of the _individual_ now indeed passes over; the individual, therefore, ceases more rapidly or slowly to be productive, and Nature reaches the indifference-point with it only after the latter has got down to a product of the second power.[60]

And now the result of all this?—The condition of the inorganic (as well as of the organic) product, is duality. In any case, however, organic _productive product_ is so only from the fact _that the difference_ NEVER _becomes indifference_.

It is [in so far] therefore impossible to reduce the construction of organic and of inorganic product to a _common_ expression, and the problem is incorrect, and therefore the solution impossible. The problem presupposes that organic product and inorganic product are mutually _opposed_, whereas the latter is only the _higher power_ of the former, and is produced only by the higher power of the forces through which the latter also is produced. Sensibility is only the higher power of magnetism; irritability only the higher power of electricity; formative instinct only the higher power of the chemical process.—But sensibility, and irritability, and formative instinct are all only included in that _one_ process of irritation. (Galvanism affects them all).[61] But if they are only the higher functions of magnetism, electricity, &c., there must again be a higher synthesis for these in Nature[62]—and this, however, it is certain, can be sought for only in Nature, in so far as, viewed as a whole, it is _absolutely_ organic.

And this, moreover, is also the result to which the genuine Science of Nature must lead, viz: that the difference between organic and inorganic nature is only in Nature as object, and that Nature as originally-_productive_ soars above both.[63]

* * * * *

There remains only one remark, which we may make, not so much on account of its intrinsic interest, as in order to justify what we said above in regard to the relation of our system to the hitherto so-called dynamical system. If it were asked, for instance, in what form our original antithesis, cancelled, or rather fixed, in the product, would appear from the stand-point of reflection, we cannot better designate what is found in the product by analysis, than as _expansive_ and _attractive_ (retarding) _force_, to which then however, gravitation must always be added as the _tertium quid_, whereby those opposites become what they are.

Nevertheless, the designation is valid only for the stand-point of reflection or of _analysis_, and cannot be applied for _synthesis_ at all; and thus our system leaves off exactly at the point where the Dynamical Physics of Kant and his successors begins, namely, at the antithesis as it presents itself in the product.

And with this the author delivers over these Elements of a System of Speculative Physics to the thinking heads of the age, begging them to make common cause with him in this science, which opens up views of no mean order, and to make up by their own powers, acquirements and external relations, for what, in these respects, he lacks.

[The notes not marked as “Remarks of the original” are by the German
Editor.—_Note of the Translator._]

Footnote 18:

Thus, for example, it becomes very clear through the whole course of
our inquiry, that, in order to render the dynamic organization of the
Universe evident in all its parts, we still lack that central
phenomenon of which Bacon already speaks, which certainly lies in
Nature, but has not yet been extracted from it by experiment. [_Remark
of the Original._ Compare below, third note to “General Remark.”]

Footnote 19:

If only those warm panegyrists of empiricism, who exalt it at the
expense of science, did not, true to the idea of empiricism, try to
palm off upon us as empiricism their own judgments, and what they have
put into nature, and imposed upon objects; for though many persons
think they can talk about it, there is a great deal more belonging to
it than many imagine—to eliminate purely the accomplished from Nature,
and to state it with the same fidelity with which it has been
eliminated.—_Remark of the Original._

Footnote 20:

A traveller in Italy makes the remark that the whole history of the
world may be demonstrated on the great obelisk at Rome; so, likewise,
in every product of Nature. Every mineral body is a fragment of the
annals of the earth. But what is the earth? Its history is interwoven
with the history of the whole of Nature, and so passes from the fossil
through the whole of inorganic and organic Nature, till it culminates
in the history of the universe—one chain.—_Remark of the Original._

Footnote 21:

Volta already asks, with reference to the affection of the senses by
galvanism—“Might not the electric fluid be the immediate cause of all
flavors? Might it not be the cause of sensation in all the other
senses?”—_Remark of the Original._

Footnote 22:

According to the foregoing experiments, it is at least not impossible
to regard the phenomena of light and those of electricity as one,
since in the prismatic spectrum the colors _may_ at least be
considered as opposites, and the white light, which regularly falls in
the middle, be regarded as the indifference-point; and for reasons of
analogy one is tempted to consider _this_ construction of the
phenomena of light as the real one.—_Remark of the Original._

Footnote 23:

Hence wherever the antithesis is cancelled or deranged, the
metamorphosis becomes irregular. For what is disease even but
metamorphosis?—_Remark of the Original._

Footnote 24:

From this point onwards, there are, as in the Outlines, additions in
notes (similar to the few that have already been admitted into the
text in brackets []). They are excerpted from a MS. copy of the
author’s.

Footnote 25:

The first postulate of natural science is an antithesis in the pure
identity of Nature. This antithesis must be thought quite purely, and
not with any other substrate besides that of activity; for it is the
condition of all substrate. The person who cannot think activity or
opposition without a substrate, cannot philosophize at all. For all
philosophizing goes only to the deduction of a substrate.

Footnote 26:

The phenomena of electricity show the scheme of nature oscillating
between productivity and product. This condition of oscillation or
change, attractive and repulsive force, is the real condition of
formation.

Footnote 27:

For it is the only thing that is given us to derive all other things
from.

Footnote 28:

The whole of the uncancelled antithesis of _A_ is carried over to _B_.
But again, it cannot entirely cancel itself in _B_, and is therefore
carried over to _C_. The antithesis in _C_ is therefore maintained by
_B_, but only in so far as _A_ maintains the antithesis which is the
condition of _B_.

Footnote 29:

That is, distribution exists only, when the antithesis in a product is
not absolutely but only relatively cancelled.

Footnote 30:

The struggle towards indifference attains the preponderance over the
antithesis, at a greater or less distance from the body which
exercises the distribution, (as, for example, at a certain distance,
the action by distribution, which an electric or magnetic body
exercises upon another body, appears as cancelled.) The difference in
this distance is the ground of the difference of world-bodies in one
and the same system, inasmuch, namely, as one part of the matter is
subjected to indifference more than the rest. Since, therefore, the
condition of all product is difference, difference must again arise at
every step as the source of all existence, but must also be thought as
again cancelled. By this continual reproduction and resuscitation
creation takes place anew at every step.

Footnote 31:

It is precisely zero to which Nature continually strives to revert,
and to which it would revert, if the antithesis were ever cancelled.
Let us suppose the original condition of Nature = 0 (want of reality).
Now zero can certainly be thought as dividing itself into 1 - 1 (for
this = 0); but if we posit that this division as not infinite (as it
is in the infinite series 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 ...), then Nature will as it
were oscillate continually between zero and unity—and this is
precisely its condition.

Footnote 32:

Baader on the Pythagorean Square. 1798. (_Remark of the original._)

Footnote 33:

Except by the thoughtful author of a review of my work on the
world-soul, in the Würzburg _Gelehrte Anzeiger_, the only review of
that work that has hitherto come under my notice. (_Remark of the
original._)

Footnote 34:

It is here taken for granted that what we call the quality of bodies,
and what we are wont to regard as something homogeneous, and the
ground of all homogeneity is really only an expression for a cancelled
difference.

Footnote 35:

In the M.S. copy the last part of this sentence reads as follows: The
construction of quality ought necessarily to be capable of
experimental proof, by the recancelling the identity, and of the
phenomena which accompany it.

Footnote 36:

Every body must be thought as reproduced at every step—and therefore
also every total product.

Footnote 37:

The _universal_, however, is never perceived, for the simple reason
that it is universal.

Footnote 38:

Whereby what was said above is confirmed,—that falling toward the
centre is a compound motion.

Footnote 39:

The reciprocal cancelling of opposite motions.

Footnote 40:

Or the object is seen in the first stage of becoming, or of transition
from difference to indifference. The phenomena of magnetism even
serve, so to speak, as an impulse, to transport us to the standpoint
beyond the product, which is necessary in order to the construction of
the product.

Footnote 41:

There will result the opposite effect—a _negative_ attraction, that
is, repulsion. Repulsion and attraction stand to each other as
positive and negative magnitudes. Repulsion is only negative
attraction—attraction only negative repulsion; as soon, therefore, as
the maximum of attraction is reached, it passes over into its
opposite—into repulsion.

Footnote 42:

If we designate the factors as + and - electricity, then, in the
second stage, + electricity had a relative preponderance over -
electricity.

Footnote 43:

If no longer the individual factors of the two products, but the whole
products themselves are absolutely opposed to each other.

Footnote 44:

For product is something wherein antithesis cancels itself, but it
cancels itself only through indifference of gravity. When, therefore,
two products are opposed to each other, the indifference in each
_individually_ must be absolutely cancelled, and the whole products
must gravitate towards each other.

Footnote 45:

In the electric process, the whole product is not active, but only the
one factor of the product, which has the relative preponderance over
the other. In the chemical process in which the _whole product_ is
active, it follows that the indifference of the whole product must be
cancelled.

Footnote 46:

We have therefore the following scheme of the dynamical process:

First stage: Unity of the product—magnetism.

Second stage: Duplicity of the products—electricity.

Third stage: Unity of the products—chemical process.

Footnote 47:

The conclusions which may be deduced from this construction of
dynamical phenomena are partly anticipated in what goes before. The
following may serve for further explanation:

The chemical process, for example, in its highest perfection is a
process of combustion. Now I have already shown on another occasion,
that the condition of light in the body undergoing combustion is
nothing else but the maximum of its positive electrical condition. For
it is always the positively electrical condition that is also the
combustible. Might not, then, this coexistence of the phenomenon of
light with the chemical process in its highest perfection give us
information about the ground of every phenomenon of light in Nature?

What happens, then, in the chemical process? Two whole products
gravitate towards each other. The _indifference_ of the _individual_
is therefore _absolutely_ cancelled. This absolute cancelling of
indifference puts the whole body into the condition of light, just as
the partial in the electric process puts it into a partial condition
of light. Therefore, also the light—what seems to stream to us from
the sun—is nothing else but the phenomenon of indifference cancelled
at every step. For as gravity never ceases to act, its
condition—antithesis—must be regarded as springing up again at every
step. We should thus have in light a continual, visible appearing of
gravitation, and it would be explained why, in the system of worlds,
it is exactly those bodies which are the principal seat of gravity
that are also the principal source of light. We should then, also,
have an explanation of the connection in which the action of light
stands to that of gravitation.

The manifold effects of light on the deviations of the magnetic
needle, on atmospheric electricity, and on organic nature, would be
explained by the very fact that light is the phenomenon of
indifference continually cancelled—therefore, the phenomenon of the
dynamical process continually rekindled. It is, therefore, one
antithesis that prevails in all dynamical phenomena—in those of
magnetism, electricity and light; for example, the antithesis, which
is the condition of the electrical phenomena must already enter into
the first construction of matter. For all bodies are certainly
electrical.

Footnote 48:

Or rather, conversely, the more combustible is always also the
positively electric; whence it is manifest that the body which burns
has merely reached the maximum of + electricity.

Footnote 49: